PocketPc

Exchange / Outlook Microsoft PocketPc Sprint

Getting a Samsung IP-830W to activesync.

By on Wednesday, June 27, 2007

After receiving a Samsung IP830W to allow international access to exchange, I had a big headache getting the device to sync with the exchange server.
The initial problem was caused by the SSL certificate having expired on the exchange server. Normal browsers can just hit the ok button to continue, but Windows Mobile5 will refuse to sync unless this is fixed.
Rather than purchase a new SSL certificate and wait the couple of weeks for Verisign or Network Solutions to provide me a certificate (this was needed *now*) I did some research and came up with the website SSL Enabling OWA 2003 using a free 3rd party certificate. Following the instructions was very simple and after a few minutes I had the certificate installed on the server. However the Windows Mobile Device would not accept the certificate! More research later the solution seemed to be to copy the cert file to the device and double click it but this still didn’t work.
In the end I copied the ca.cer file to my pc and then used the infrared connection to copy it to the device. This got around the previous problem I had with the certificate programs not recognising the previous certificate I had BUT I then got the issue “Security permission was insufficient to update your device”.
Whilst I was doing this I was on the phone with Sprint (on hold) for twenty minutes and at this point they answered the phone and were useless. They admitted they hadn’t had any training on this, that no certificates were allowed to be installed on the device and to contact Microsoft. I hung up on the guy as he obviously had no clue and downloaded the RegeditSTG file from Bernt Lervik. Using the instructions at Bernt’s site I edited the registry to allow the certificate to be installed. I did have to extract the zip file first and copy the exe file across as opposed to the zip file. Note that in order to expand the branches I had to use the center key within the rocker switch as the stylus/enter key wouldn’t work.
Start regeditSTG and navigate to the hive key HKLM\Security\Policies\Policies
Change the following three registry keys (hint: hit Values first)
a. 00001001 to 1 (was 2)
b. 00001005 to 40 (was 16)
c. 00001017 to 144 (was 128)
After that I was able to double click the ca.cer file to install it, and then start the activesync process with exchange.

Hope this (convuluted) solution will help any other users and me the next time I have to do this certification dance.

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PocketPc

Emulator

By on Friday, July 21, 2006

I managed to get the pocket pc image to work properly over the emulator although the first time I set up the activesync on the client it worked ok but it didn’t seem to work immediately, data would only get transferred when I hit sync. However after rebooting the pocketpc it started to sync immediately – it really was pretty cool to see it in action. It doesn’t seem to synchronise sent or deleted items immediately though – thats pretty strange.
Unfortunately for some weird reason Microsoft have disabled the print screen button from working when the emulator is running so I can’t show you any screen shots of it whilst running.

I can’t get the smart phone working as for some reason it decides to bind the network card to my vpn connection (which isn’t going anywhere) rather than my wifi card that is in the laptop. Using a parameter of /p 000102040d23 (substituting the mac address of the network card) should give you network connectivity but not on the smartphone. Instead I get a very annoying “Your Internet connection is not configured properly. Please verify your settings in Data Connections.” This even occurs with using internet explorer so I know it’s not an activesync issue.

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Exchange / Outlook PocketPc Virtual PC Visual Studio Windows 2003

PocketPC Emulator

By on Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Microsoft have released a Windows Mobile 5 emulator that you can run on your pc, normally for developing software for the windows mobile. However, you can also use this to test and debug the setup of Direct Push with Microsoft Exchange 2003 service pack2. This is great to try before you blow up a users phone as you test stuff out. Seeing as though Direct Push has only just started being available on the phones, it is unrealistic to know how to get it working out of the box.

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Creative Zen Geocaching PocketPc Powertoys Synctoy

Synctoy impressions.

By on Thursday, August 4, 2005

Mike linked to Synctoy’s release and I downloaded it yesterday and started playing.
I did have one peculiarity in that the second time I did a sync after removing the usb disk and plugging it in again it decided to sync some files again (even though nothing would have changed). This has, so far, been the only time it happened but I’m very impressed with the developers as they saw my comment on Mikes blog about this and then emailed me to ask for more information on the problem. Totally unexpected as this is a powertoy, not supported by Microsoft AND my comments are not visible on Mikes homepage.

I really like the product and at the moment have 4 syncs set up.
2 synchronise the download locations of firefox and thunderbird to my usb disk. Therefore when a new extension is available, I download it to one place, normally on the main computer but it could be on a laptop or remote computer if an extension is released whilst i’m using a different pc) and then when I synchronise the usb disk back home, the latest extension is updated back to the home pc. Now I don’t have to worry that I have all the files needed to install firefox (or thunderbird) at a friendsfree client’s house.
The 3rd synchronisation contains all the gpx’s I download for geocaching. These files are retrieved via email within gsak and I can sync these to the usb drive for use on another pc automatically using “C:\Program Files\Microsoft\SyncToy\synctoy.exe -R” after the download withing gsak.
The 4th synchronisation is an entire copy of the usb drive onto disk. This way I have a backup copy in case I loose the disk or it gets corrupted.
I will be adding some more functionality to synchronise the gpx files onto the SD card used in my pocketpc for caching out in the wild and possibly to synchronise mp3 files from my pc to the creative zen (if thats possible – not had chance to try that just yet.)

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AximElated Dell PocketPc

Axim reinstall (again)

By on Tuesday, June 21, 2005

What a nightmare restoring a pocketpc is. After my previous hard reset and reinstalling the apps on the pocketpc I realised I didn’t have access to the notes, contacts or diary in the pocketpc. This didn’t use to be a problem as all the data was synched up to my outlook account, but now that I am on my home pc I don’t use outlook – and therefore no computer based backup of the data. It would have been possible to restore the data from the pocketpc backup that I had taken but this would roll me back to the state where MediaPlayer would not launch so that wasn’t really what I wanted. It took about an hour of searching in google but eventually I came across Sunnysoft’s backup manager that enables you to backup your pocketpc and more importantly do a selective restore. I restored the full backup from the pocketpc backup, then used Sunnysoft to backup the data to the SD card and make the backup an executable (a VERY smart feature). I then hard reset the axim, installed the applications that I had previously installed with this computer (which is very easy as I just had to reselect the programs within activesync) and then double clicked on sunnysofts backup file. I then said No to restoring everything, selected the tasks, contacts, calendar and all of my documents and a minute or so later I was prompted to reboot and the pocketpc is back to a fully functioning state.
Backup manager is a free trial download (and saved my bacon) and is usable for 14 days after which you need to register. This application also has the ability to automatically copy the backups over to the pc for further offline backup.

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AximElated Dell PocketPc

PocketPC reinstall

By on Tuesday, January 4, 2005

I decided to reinstall the pocketpc today with a factory reset and then a reinstall of the programs. I had found that Word, notes and contacts were hanging when I went to save them and Microsoft Media Player just wouldn’t start up.
Therefore I’ve reinstalled the following apps:-
MS Activation for reader ( to read the occasional ebook)
TomTom GPS + CityMaps (the maps were already saved to SD card so that cut down on backup/installation time)
MagiButton (allow proper close of applications)
Macromedia Flash player
Adobe Reader 7
MpegTV PocketTV
Pocketmind PocketMusic
GPX Sonar (old beta version as the newest only works on pocketpc2003)
kevtris (essential for those 10 minute breaks)
PocketWarrior – wifi checker
Pocket Streets & Trips 2005. Even though I got the USA version, there are uk maps to download!
total commander – file utility
Windows Theme Switch Today
Real Audio for PocketPC

Update After all that the pocketpc is still hanging – BUT I’ve found out that it only hangs if I have the SD card in the slot. If I power off the Axim, remove the sd card and then power it back on again, the axim resumes where it was and *instantly* saves the file. Now to work out why it does this in Word and notes (that I’ve discovered so far). The SD card is fine as the other apps seem to write to it ok (Thanks to treasure realm by deleting ignore_my_documents from the root of the SD card Word now works great! (So I’ve just wasted 4 hours restoring and wiping,reinstalling and wiping)

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