The Day My PC Asked - "Is Microsoft ActiveSync having Problems?"

Kris Kumar

Recently while trying to sync my T-Mobile Dash with my laptop, I was greeted with the above screen. I could not believe my eyes, and for a second I thought that someone was playing a prank. The title for some reason sounded really funny. Anyway, I wasn't aware that Microsoft had implemented a troubleshooting wizard to help the users out of those tricky and frustrating sync partnership setup issues. I said - thank you Microsoft, and clicked the next button. If you are wondering what happened next; or if you, like me, were not aware about the presence of this wizard, then read on.
After I plugged in the Dash, the Microsoft ActiveSync icon in the Windows XP traybar kept spinning for what seemed like eternity, and then gave up. I was then greeted with the following message.

I must admit that I didn't pay much attention to the prompt and simply clicked the OK button. That is when the troubleshooting wizard made its appearance. At this point I was surprised that Microsoft had implemented a troubleshooting wizard, and was wondering why I had never heard about it. Also, I was eager to give the wizard a try.

The wizard, as you can see in the following screen, runs a battery of tests to identify the possible problem preventing the partnership connection.

In my case it did not find any problem. The final screen of the wizard was a bit of a disappointment. It repeated the issue that the PC is unable to talk to the device. And it directed me to check out a link, which didn't do a thing to help me resolve the problem. That's helpful; thanks but no thanks Microsoft!

Given the fact that users face a lot of problems while trying to establish a partnership for the first time or during daily sync, this troubleshoot wizard is a step in the right direction. From the looks of it, it seems to be doing the checks in all the right areas but it seems like it is not comprehensive enough. In my case the culprit was that recently I had turned on the firewall, and enabled the "Don't allow exceptions" option as well. I disabled the firewall and re-tried the whole process, and this time the connection worked. Wish the wizard had advised me with the right troubleshooting tips. For me this whole wizard experience was new, I do not ever remember using this wizard. Is this something new in ActiveSync 4.5? Have you folks seen this wizard? Was it helpful for you?
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Jerry Raia · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 9:19 am Post subject:

I think this first showed up in 4.1 or 4.2. It is almost completely useless. They should change the first dialog box question to:

"When is Microsoft ActiveSync NOT having problems?"
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[BlackJack] [8525]

whydidnt · Smartphone Pupil Joined: 01 Dec 2006 Posts: 11

The fact that it managed to say both your Firewall and TCP/IP Port 990 were okay despite the fact you had the firewall set for no exceptions shows how little thought they put into this wizard. Wouldn't it have been nice if the wizard had told you it couldn't access the port and to check your firewall settings?

Kind of reminds when you get an error message after IE crashes and you send the error report to MS. You never get any sort of response from them but to check for Spyware or Viruses, as if those are the only possible reasons the software would crash. Never anything helpful for those of us that aren't infected. These types of things from MS almost always are all show and no go, in my opinion. Rolling Eyes

Pete Paxton · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 11:02 am Post subject:

This is why I gave up on syncing with my computer. I use an exchange server and use Outlook on the web only. I don't think I even have outlook installed on my computer anymore. There were times I had syncing problems and I've even had my calendar and contacts wiped out due to errors. I love being able to enter info into my Dash and know it's automatically being sync-ed to the web version of outlook. I can then check it with any computer with an internet connection.
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Tmo Dash

mr_yellow · Smartphone Neophyte Joined: 04 Apr 2006 Posts: 6

I ran into this problem when I restored from an SPB Backup image. My computer simply stopped recognizing the device anymore when plugged into usb. even after deleting the partnership and rebooting everything it still failed to connect.

My only course of action was hardreseting the device and reloading everything from scratch... =(

I'm tempted to see if Sprite backup has the same issue, but I *really* don't want to rebuild from scratch again if it does.

Good luck... That wizard does lots of stuff, but was absolutely useless to me.

This was with activesync 4.2

Jerry Raia · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:03 pm Post subject:

I rarely Sync with my PC anymore also because of Push. My BlackJack still won't sync with WMDC on Vista. It's all pretty weak if you ask me.
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[BlackJack] [8525]

onlydarksets · Smartphone Intellectual Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 245

I finally gave up on MS Onecare because it hosed my connection to my Q. I don't do much syncing with the computer, but I do charge my phone there and transfer movies. There are just too many variables with ActiveSync.

reidme · Smartphone Neophyte Joined: 13 Mar 2007 Posts: 1

What a joke. If they could make a wizard that would diagnose and repair the problems with ActiveSync then they could have just fixed the problems in ActiveSync to start with.

Kris Kumar · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 7:52 pm Post subject:

bshpmark · Smartphone Intellectual Joined: 11 Mar 2006 Posts: 121

I have had this wizard come up several times and the only thing it really ever did for me was to serve as a a reminder that I had forgotten to turn my Zone Alarms firewall off. Otherwise the wizard is useless. I always wonder if anyone at Microsoft ever actually found and fixed a problem using the wizard.