How to connect a Windows Mobile PDA to Windows 10

Question

Does anyone know how I can get a Windows Mobile 6.5 PDA to connect up to a Windows 10 PC?

Before upgrading the PC from Window 8.1 I was able to use Windows Mobile Device Center to link up to the PDA over USB. This allowed me to access files on the PDA via Windows Explorer, access the internet from the PDA over our network and deploy to the PDA via Visual Studio 2008.

I had to uninstall Windows Mobile Device Center as part of the Windows 10 installation, as it was flagged as incompatible with Windows 10. I can't seem to find an alternative for Windows 10?

Luce

WMDC is now called "Sync Center" see here answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/… – Iranian

If only Sync Centre could actually detect my PDA :( – Luce

Answer 1

I have managed to get my PDA working properly with Windows 10.

For transparency when I posted the original question I had upgraded a Windows 8.1 PC to Windows 10, I have since moved to using a different PC that had a clean Windows 10 installation.

These are the steps I followed to solve the problem:

• First of all I installed Visual Studio 2008.
• Then I installed Microsoft Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1
  • http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3182
• Then Windows Mobile 6 Professional and Standard Software Development Kits Refresh
  • http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6135
• Then Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Tool Kit
  • http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17284
• Finally I opened up the Mobile Device Center, went to Mobile Device Settings -> Connection Settings and made sure DMA was selected under "Allow connections to one of the following"

Luce

This is not working for me. I guess you did something additional. – Diachronic

I did find one way to get the devices to connect in wmdc on win 10. If i uncheck advanced network functionality on the pda under usb settings it will connect but when our users try to use the data connection for a download (the reason we use wmdc) the download hangs after a few seconds and then wmdc either crashes or loses the connection. So far we are unable to find any solution that works. – Diachronic

The bad thing is almost all of our users are on win 7 or 8.1 so they will be upgrading soon through automatic updates and they will have no way to use the pdas once that happens. we have a userbase of about 100 pdas so this is going to be a nightmare. SOURCE=> answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10/… – Diachronic

@Diachronic it might be a pain with a lot of machines, but fresh installations of Win10 do not seem to have the same problems as upgrading. I have seen several fresh installations just work without any tweaking. – Luce

I tried this several times (from a different stack link answer) and it didn't work. – Leonardaleonardi

Answer 2

Unfortunately the Windows Mobile Device Center stopped working out of the box after the Creators Update for Windows 10. The application won't open and therefore it's impossible to get the sync working. In order to get it running now we need to modify the ActiveSync registry settings. Create a BAT file with the following contents and run it as administrator:

REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RapiMgr /v SvcHostSplitDisable /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WcesComm /v SvcHostSplitDisable /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Restart the computer and everything should work.

Iliac

This helped me to get WMDC to launch. Didn't install any of the dependencies from the accepted answer. Installed WMDC 6.1 (without altering compatibility settings) and added these keys via an elevated Powershell window. – Exoteric

Brilliant this worked... The only other thing I noticed with my PC was that it kept coming up with "... Default email application is not selected..." now after using this reg hack it is not displaying anymore :) – Leonardaleonardi

Same problem here and worked for me too. Had to restart my PC several times, but now it works, even with "Enable advanced network " checked on the device ! Thanks. – Crumby

I was able to connect using bluetooth as the usb connection didn't even recognize the device. – Rapt

For Windows 10 version 1709, Combine this answer with setting local system account for the service by Lee Harris's answer and then a restart got me connected finally. Mind that I have VS2008 and WMDC installed already. – Instrument

Update: Also succeeded on a fresh PC without VS2008. Just the Registry, Local System account for services, WMDC 6.1 and the developer tool kit. No other settings needed. – Instrument

Worked for me too. Windows 10 version 1809 – Sabbat

Worked for me too. Windows 10 version 1903 – Yardmaster

Answer 3

Had the same problem. Came across an article from Zebra with the fix that worked for me:

1. Open services.msc
2. Go to Windows Mobile-2003-based device connectivity
3. Right click Windows Mobile-2003-based device connectivity and click Properties
4. Go to Log On Tab
5. Choose Local System Account

6. Click Apply
7. Go to General Tab
8. Press Stop and wait
9. Once stopped, press Start
10. Press OK
11. Restart your PC
12. Retry the Windows Mobile Device Center

Original article can be found here

Effector

Answer 4

1. Install

   • Windows Mobile 6 Professional SDK Refresh
   • Windows Mobile 6 Standard SDK Refresh
   • Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional Developer Tool Kit (USA)
   • Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard Developer Tool Kit (USA)

2. Control Panel > Programs and Features > Add or remove a Windows component

   • NET Framework 3.5
   • Check HTTP and non HTTP

3. Reinstall WMDC observing your platform x64/x86

4. Services.msc > Windows Mobile 2003-based device connectivity

   • Logon > Local System
   • Allow service to interact with desktop

5. Restart your PC

Standard

Answer 5

Here is the answer: Download the "Windows Mobile Device Center" for your machine type, likely 64bit.
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=3182

Before you run the install, change the compatibility settings to 'Windows 7'. Then install it... Then run it: You'll find it under 'WMDC'.. Your device should now recognize, when plugged in, mine did!

Maganmagana

You cannot write a sentence like "Here is the answer", if this was only applicable to you not being the right answer for everyone. This was not the answer in my case. – Laodicea

If you notice most of the answers on here are nearly the same, just slightly different styles. Did you make sure that you installed WMDC with windows 7 compatiblity. – Maganmagana

Answer 6

Install Windows Mobile Device Center for your architecture. (It will install older versions of .NET if needed.) In USB to PC settings on device uncheck Enable advanced network and tap OK. This worked for me on 2 different Windows 10 PCs.

Bitner

This worked for me. I also needed to add the two registry keys mentioned by another user on this question. – Exoteric

Answer 7

I haven't managed to get WMDC working on Windows 10 (it hanged on splash screen upon start), so I've finally uninstalled it. But now I have a Portable Devices / Compact device in the Device Manager and I can browse my Windows Compact 7 device within Windows Explorer. All my apps using RAPI also work. Maybe this is the result of installing/uninstalling WMDC, or probably this functionality was already presented on Windows 10 and I've just overlooked it initially.

Quiles

I did, just change the compat settings prior to install. – Maganmagana