Tag Archives: activesync

stop wm6 from always using internet sharing

Computer Aid Posted on by

My trusty old HTC Touch 3G (Windows Mobile 6.1) had developed a strange fault:

I would plug in in to my PCs USB port, and it would always try to connect using internet sharing (which I didn’t want it to do, as my PC already had an internet connection), and I couldn’t get it to connect via Activesync or as a USB drive.

No amount of changing default connection type or setting / unsetting the “ask me at connection time” would change this behavior.

Since Since most of my data is now in the Google cloud, it wasn’t a major problem, however, I often needed to transfer data to and from my phone.

I then stumbled onto the solution:

  • Plugin the phone via USB
  • wait until it connects (internet sharing)
  • unplug the phone
  • within a few seconds, plugin the phone again!

Its very strange behavior, but it did let me transfer data.

The Activesync connection was still a problem, and I really wasn’t interested in wasting time trying to find a solution to a Microsoft-induced problem.

For the record: My HTC Touch 3G has since died, and I’m now the proud owner of an Android-powered HTC Desire… Personally, I find that there is little difference between the iphone and Android… but they are both way ahead of Windows Mobile 6.1.

I’ve had little chance to try the latest windows mobile 7, but I hope to try it out soon.

activesync 4.5: critical communications services have failed to start

Computer Aid Posted on by

Ah, ActiveSync 4.5 for my windows mobile seems to become increasingly “annoying”.

The most annoying problem is that when I have my htc touch connected to the PC (for charging and for syncing), ActiveSync will start every 2 minutes (and take about 1 minute to synchronise).

That, in itself is not a problem, but while syncing, my phone is so slow, that its virtually unusable.

Looking at activesync on the PC, I see that the entire “tools” menu is greyed out… so I can’t adjust the sync frequency.

I find a registry setting that will re-enable the Activesync menus… that works well, but even setting the sync frequency to “manual” doesn’t change how often the WM6 phone actually syncs… grrr

and to top it off, navigating through the phones filesystem using windows explorer on the PC stopped working.

activesyncIf I click on “Mobile Device” under “My Computer”, I get: “critical communications services have failed to start”

Luckily the fix is simple:

From a command prompt: netsh winsock reset catalog

Then restart the PC.

google activesync error 0X80004005

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’ve been investigating the possibilities of integrating most of my office activities by using a smartphone.

Until now, I’ve been using Palm PDA’s so I didn’t want to go to windows mobile in a big way, only to find that I might regret it. So I decided to start “small”

By small, I meant cheap, which meant I got an ipaq H6365 with pocket PC 2003 (big, heavy, but I can see if its suitable)

activesyncI managed to setup gmail, google calendar and google contacts, import data from the palm, and then active sync to the ipaq.

It would work for a few days, and then I started getting error 0x80004005 during an active sync (and no contact/calendar items would get updated)

I’m syncing about 15 appointments and about 475 contacts.

I’d disable the contact syncing, and the calendar would work fine. I then re-enable contacts and 0x80004005 happens again (and only 100 contacts will get transferred).

I disable contacts again,

In google contacts, i export all the contacts in google csv format (note: group associations will be lost), delete all the google contacts, import contacts from the csv file, enable contact syncing on the ipaq, and everything is fine again.

For a few days, then it all happens again.

It seems like an obvious bug with google contacts and/or their sync software.

Sure, I really shouldn’t expect much from a beta application, but I’d like it to work better

gsyncThen I find the real problem: seems that google mobile sync is only tested to work with windows mobile 5 & 6 (not pocket pc 2003 and earlier).

Luckily, I’m happy enough with using a windows mobile device, that I’ll be looking at getting a more modern HTC smartphone… maybe the original HTC Touch.