Geovani Martinez

For the past month or so I been trying to configure my Dell Axim X51 to Sync with my new Vista Home Premium laptop. I looked at hundreds of threads to the point I gave up and figured I used my desktop machine for development and testing when it came to mobile device development, that is all I use my Dell Axim X51 for.

Today an application I had written for mobile devices needed some enhancements and without hesitation I went back to attempting to make it Sync with my Vista laptop since I really did not want to pull out my XP machine and set it up, so off I went. First thread I bumped to read “you installed vista…good luck!” which made me think “why do people like to post garbage?”, if you are not providing valuable input or at least helping out in a positive way then don’t post nothing at all! and why the hell do most of the message boards out there have not implemented a voting system where we can bump up the good post and vote down useless post.

Any how you came here for a possible solution so here we go. First I will inform you of my device configurations

Laptop

HP Pavilion dv4 (say’s so on the right hand corner of the display)

Running Vista Home Premium, AMD 64 bit processor (should of gone with the 32bit!)

Dell Axim X51

Windows Mobile 5.0 (Build 14957.2.3.1)

Processor Intel® PXA270

Downloads

If you have not done so you need to download the Windows Mobile Device Center (ActiveSync does not work on vista). You can do a search for it or go start your search here Microsoft is always moving things around to the point it’s useless to provide a direct link.

Ok, now will list the steps I took to get my device working with Vista

Did a Hard Boot which restored my device to factory settings, I did this because I had installed so much junk on the device it really required for me to do so. I don’t think you may need to do this.

Connect the cradle (just the cradle) device to your machine (normally USB connection), DO NOT cradle your device yet!

Run Microsoft Windows Device Center and set your settings as shown below

Now on your Mobile Device open up ActiveSync and Click the “Menu” –> “Connections”, make sure the “Synchronize all PCs using this connection:” is checked and USB is selected in the drop down box. Save your settings (normally by closing the screen)

Now go to “Start” –> “Settings” –> Select the “Connections” Tab, there click on the “USB to PC” icon and uncheck “Enable advance network functionality”, in XP enabling this featured resolved a lot of Sync issues but in Vista this breaks Sync (at least for me that is).

Now that you have Windows Mobile Device Center running and the cradle is connected via USB; its time to cradle your device so go ahead and place it on its cradle. Immediately you will notice Vista begin to install the Drivers for your Axim and after its done you should be able to begin the partnership process which I hope your familiar with.

I hope the process mentioned above solved your issue, but just in case here are a few things I would like to point out

I heard a lot about people having to disable their antivirus, spyware, ect. Today I uninstalled Norton Internet Security, I only had 10 days left on the free subscription, I’m not saying its the solution but worth looking in to. I wish I could of kept Norton but they make it so difficult to completely disable their product.

I also disabled the Windows Firewall, Malware Protection, during this process; after getting the partnership configured I went back and turned them on, everything works fine.

I may purchase Norton and reinstall it hopefully it was not Norton breaking the Sync process and will update this post.

Well that’s all folks!