Common Problems and Solutions
During the past four years working with Pocket PCs, I have seen ActiveSync causing a lot of frustration for users and network administrators. This article offers tips to solve some of the common problems that network administrators may experience while deploying and supporting ActiveSync.
ActiveSync and Outlook installation sequence
In order to ensure that ActiveSync will recognize that Outlook is installed, I recommend that you install Outlook before installing ActiveSync. Further, I suggest that you ensure that you have installed the latest patches for Outlook by visiting http://office.microsoft.com and clicking on the Check for Updates link. You must launch Outlook and configure Outlook including e-mail before installing ActiveSync. Then install the latest version of ActiveSync (which is version 3.8 as of this writing) from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/downloads/activesync38.mspx. This will ensure that you can synchronize your Pocket PC with whatever version of Outlook you have installed on your PC, including Outlook 2003. Also, you should note that only the first PC you synchronize with can sync with Inbox.
User security for installing and using ActiveSync
In order to install and use ActiveSync the user that is logged into the PC must be a local administrator. If you install ActiveSync and you are not a local administrator you will not be able to complete the installation. Further, if a user's security is subsequently reduced they may not be able to synchronize, because ActiveSync runs as a user task and modifies the registry.
Naming the partnership
When you first connect the Pocket PC and set up the first partnership, you are shown the name of the Pocket PC as Pocket_PC (assuming you have not changed the name of the device in Settings, System, About, Device ID). Pocket_PC is not a supported Netbios name because it has an underscore between Pocket and PC. Because of this, you may experience problems in the future if you wish to connect to your network directly via a network card. I suggest that you give the Pocket PC a name that begins with any capitalized or lower case letter, and is comprised entirely of alphanumeric characters (no spaces, punctuation marks, or symbols).
Configuring file conversion options
Because there have been reports of issues converting Office 2003 file formats, I recommend that you disable file conversion for Word and Excel documents once you have ActiveSync installed. Pocket Word and Excel can open and save documents in the desktop PC file formats, so this should not cause any problems for users. Note, however, that Pocket Word and Excel will not open Word or Excel documents that have been password protected on the desktop PC.
ActiveSync allows you to control how files are converted when moved from your PC to your Windows Mobile device.
To disable the file conversion, connect your Pocket PC and launch ActiveSync on your PC. Then, in ActiveSync on your PC, click Tools, Options, Rules and then click on the Conversion Settings button. Then you can select the .DOC and .XLS formats to change the conversion settings.
Software firewalls can prevent synchronization
If you install a software firewall on your PC, you must configure it to allow ActiveSync to connect to the Internet. I suggest that you first disable your firewall to confirm that you can synchronize. If you can synchronize, then ensure that you have authorized ActiveSync to use the Internet. The Internet in this case also means the use of TCP/IP.
