Before you start...

This troubleshooting guide is intended to resolve significant problems with Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) for Windows Vista, not to resolve single incidental hick-ups of this application. WMDC is included in Windows Vista and beyond. For older desktop operating systems, there is Activesync 4.0 that has its own ActiveSync 4.0 troubleshooter.

Please observe that Windows Mobile Device Center does NOT work with PocketPC and PocketPC2002 devices. With these operating systems you can not synchronize with Vista anymore.

Before we start to do more serious things, please check the most obvious problems:

• Does your exchange administrator allow you to sycnhronize with a desktop (applicable only for Exchange 2007 and Windows Mobile 6.1 and above)?
• Is the cable between your device and desktop/laptop connected? Make sure that the cable is plugged in correctly and is stuck there solidly.
• Did you have any USB-hubs between the PocketPC and desktop? If so, remove these hubs and check if that solves the problem.
• Does the desktop see the PocketPC? You can check this by looking in the desktop, going to the Device Manager (under Control Panel, System). Normally, a Windows Mobile device wil manifest itself as a Network adapter. If the device is correctly installed, you will see something like this:

Before you start the real troubleshooting, some general things must be done  to make sure that the problem is with Activesync, and not with your PocketPC or Microsoft Outlook (both also being vulnarable for application hangs):

• Make you have run Windows Update with the device connected to your desktop, just to get the latest version of WMDC installed.
• Remove all the files in the /windows/temp/ and C:/Users/AppData/Local/Temp directories
• Run "Detect and repair" on Microsoft Outlook. You can start this in Microsoft Outlook in the "Help" menu, "Detect and Repair".
• Run "ScanPST" from your commandline to make sure your Microsoft Outlook .pst file is not damaged.
• Reboot your desktop and perform a soft reset on your mobile device to make sure that Activesync has not crashed on your device.

If your problem still occurs, it is time to start the real troubleshooting.

Device does not connect to the desktop

If your device is not detected as a device by your desktop (giving a sound when you plug it in) but it does not launch anything afterwards, this would be a great place to start.

Conflicting applications

First of all, check if you have any of the following applications installed:

• VPN solutions that use the NDIS Intermediate Drivers
• Parental control utilities blocking specific kinds of network traffic
• Network Traffic Optimizers, reducing bandwith usage by introducing compression.

Missing services

WMDC depends on quite some services running in Vista. These services should be set to start automatic in the services manager. You need the following processes to run:

• COM+ Event System
• DCOM Server Process Launcher
• DHCP Client
• Windows Mobile 2003-baased device connectivity
• Windows Mobile based device connectivity
• Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
• UPnP Device Host

For more information about the specific function of these services, please visit PocketPCFaq.

Firewall conflicts

Check if your firewall settings are not blocking Windows Mobile Device Center. Easiest way to check if WMDC conflichts with your firewall is by turning off the firewall completely (please do this on a trusted network) and plugging in the device. If it does connect when you have turned off the firewall, you have a firewall conflict.

If installed correctly (please make sure that WMDC is installed!!), the following programs are allowed:

• Windows Mobile-based device connectivity
• Windows Mobile-based network access
• Legacy Status Port
• Legacy Sync Channel Port
• Sync Services Port

There is a huge difference in the way different operating system versions are handled by Windows Mobile Device Centre. Roughly there is a split in the way things are handled:

• Devices running Windows Mobile 5 (and beyond) default run a network-like communication.
• Devices running PocketPC2003SE (and before) or Windows Mobile 5 (and beyond) devices that forced to be running in legacy mode communicate to Vista through a serial port.

Since the difference is so big, we have split this part of troubleshooting in two parts.

Windows Mobile 5 devices (and beyond) 

To resolve conflicts with firewalls, you have to add WMDC to the list of trusted applications. WMDC has the following components:

• C:/Windows/WindowsMobile/wmdc.exe
• C:/Windows/WindowsMobile/wmdHost.exe
• C:/Windows/WindowsMobile/wmdsyncman.dll

These components have to be allowed to communicate in your firewall settings, allowing them to have full server priviliges. As for the used IP-adresses, WMDC uses 169.254.2.1 for your PC and 169.254.2.2 for your Windows Mobile 5.0 device. For these ip-adresses, the following ports have to be open:

• Inbound TCP:
• 990
• 999
• 5678
• 5721
• 26675
• Outbound UDP:
• 5679
• Outbound TCP:
• 990

The application using these ports is C:/Windows/WindowsMobile/wmdHost.exe.

PocketPC2003 devices and Windows Mobile devices running in legacy mode

When you have a PocketPC 2003 device or a Windows Mobile 5 (or later) device running in legacy mode, some other processes and ports are used. When running in legacymode, there is only one process thatneeds to get out:

• C:/Windows/WindowsMobile/RpiMgr.dll 

RapiManager (this is the rapimgr.dll process, which uses the svchost.exe program to launch) needs several ports:

• 990
• 999
• 5679

In Windows Vista, the Windows Firewall is missing the outbound connection for TCP-port 990, used by rapimgr.dll (this is a sevice started through the SVCHost.exe application. This results in the following error message:

To Synchronize this device you must install ActiveSync 4.1 or newer on your desktop computer.

By adding this rule in the "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security" (found in the "Administrative tools" in the controll panel).

Other security policies blocking Activesync

There are other security policies that could hamper the flawless operation of Windows Mobile Device Centre. An IPSec or other policy can block the creation of new network connections. Connections from the before mentioned IP-adresses must be allowed to be created when the device connects.

If all fails...

If all above solutions do not solve your problem, you might try to remove the "Microsoft Windows Mobile Remote Adapter" through the device manager (you can get there through the "control panel", "System settings") and plug in your device after about 15 seconds or longer. By doing so the drivers are reinstalled, which might give you an edge on your problems.

Another solution is switching back to the older ActiveSync protocol, used in PocketPC2003. You can do this by going to the "settings" on your PocketPC, going to "connections" and open "USB to PC" control. There you remove tick before "Enable advanced network functionality", connect and disconnect physically and you might be back in business. You are now running in legacy mode.

WMDC does not allow me to synchronize PIM Data

When you do get a popup, but it only allows you to synchronize media and view the contents of your device, you probably are missing the Windows Mobile drivers. These drivers allow you to synchronize your calendar, tasks, contacts and notes with outlook.

First try is by ignoring this prompt (clicking it away) and opening the "Windows Mobile Device Center" by hand from the control panel. This might work and that does solve your problem foregood.

It might be that there is an issue with the devicecenter that prevents it from launching, or that the drivers were not installed to begin with. To resolve this, plug in the device in your desktop and let Windows look for updates. You do this by selecting "Windows Update" from the "Control Panel" on your desktop and pushing the button "check for updates", while your device is still connected to the desktop. When you run this you will get one recommended update: "Microsoft Corporation driver update for Windows Mobile-based device support" and "Microsoft Corporation driver update for Microsoft Windows Mobile Remote Adapter". After the installion of this update, your device will trigger the Windows Mobile Device Center screen.

WMDC connects correctly, but does not  synchronize

Synchronization does not seem to start (no error)

On first sync, it sometimes the device is recognized and connected but it seems to be dead in the water for synchronizing data. A solution is switching back to the older ActiveSync protocol. You can do this by going to the "settings" on your PocketPC, going to "connections" and open "USB to PC" control. There you remove tick before "Enable advanced network functionality", connect and disconnect physically and you might be back in business.

Error 80004005

This error is due to that WMDC/Outlook can not access your PST-file. Best is to run scanpst.exe from the commandline on your desktop.

Error 80072EE7

It will tell you that the desktop can not be reached. Although there is little known about the cause of this problem, turning off the "Advanced network functionality" on you device (this is an option in the "USB to PC" connection settings) seems to cure it.

Error 85010014

This error is rather general and therefore rather vague. Although there is no specific solution, but some causes can be identified:

• One of the most easy to fix problems is that Outlook is an unregistered/Illegal copy. Buy a decent one and you will be fine.
• The application Data Folder is Redirected inproperly.
• Outlook script blocking is enabled. Although not set by default, certain Desktop PC security applications (mostly anti-virus applications) disable Outlook scripting to prevent malware executing scripts in Microsoft outlook. Outlook scritping is required for ActiveSync too set up communications with Outlook to synchronize data.
• Outlook API's might be corrupted, even after doing a "detect and repair". Uninstalling and reinstalling Outlook might help.
• You are working with the Microsoft Outlook connector for Lotus Notes and have synced before. Synchronizing with WMDC crashes the connector, you have to restart Microsoft Outlook before you can synchronize again.

Error 85010017

This error could be due to the presence of large volume of items on first sync or specific large items such as a calendar item with many meeting attendees. resolving this is very hard: you could try to identify the item and remove it by hand.

You can't select your application to synchronize your data

When you use outlook or a third party application that synchronizes your data from your PC to your Windows Mobile device, you need a syncprovider. It might happen that you miss the syncprovider on new relationships, or that the syncprovider goes AWOL completely. This is a known problem with Windows Mobile Devce Centre. Only solution so far is reinstalling the application you synchronize with.

WMDC synchronizes, but does not work as expected

Synchronization is very slow

If you are seeing slow synchronization of files or unable to complete synchronization of files using Windows Mobile Device Center, it could very well be that your /windows/temp/ directory is filled up with blank files (a common problem with Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC). After performing a soft reset you should be able to safely delete these files and synchronization should be a lot faster again.

Mobile Favorites gone missing

This is a very unfortunate problem. There is a rather nasty problem, and it removes part of your bookmarks. There is no resolution for this to structurally resolve this. There is a workaround for this: on your desktop you can select the properties of a bookmark by rightclicking it. You then can make a bookmark read-only.

WMDC ends with errors

It could be possible that you end with errors after synchronization. There are some errors known, including their resolution.

Server could not be reached

With devices both synchronizing locally and to exchange (your typical personal+business synchronization setup of a device), it might end up with an error on local synchronisation stating that the synchronization could not be completed because the server could not be reached. This is due to the fact that outgoing connections are blocked by WMDC and the device want to connect to exchange (keeping both Exchange and your personal machine in perfect sync). You can correct this in the connection settings by setting "allow data connections on device when connected to PC".

References

• Official Microsoft Windows Mobile Device Center troubleshooting guide
• Chris de Herrera's Windows Mobile Device Center Troubleshooting guide