I had the pleasure of setting up a new Windows Mobile powered cell phone/PDA today.
In the past, I have probably setup five similar devices and they have never gone smoothly. Today’s was the worst.
I have setup dozens of Palm powered devices and I have never had a major problem with setup that wasn’t hardware related.
As I setup the Windows Mobile device today I would go all the way through the install and then the device would attempt to sync with the computer for dates, addresses and notes. A Window would immediately pop up that said something like, "Can’t sync, reconnect the device and try again. If that doesn’t work use the ActiveSync troubleshooter."
I disconnected and reconnected the device dozens of times over the nearly four hours I worked with the problem. I read everything Microsoft had to say about the problem and either the fixes didn’t work or they would say something brilliant like, "The problem may be caused by an unknown issue."
I tried the ActiveSync troubleshooter as directed and the link Microsoft gave was a page explaining that the page couldn’t be found.
When I finally found the troubleshooter it basically said reconnect and try again or search through the database – the same database that I had already gone through several times.
I uninstalled and reinstalled ActiveSync and Outlook twice. I upgraded and updated Outlook and looked for any patches to ActiveSync.
I also turned off any and all firewalls and antiviruses.
I restarted the computer every chance I got. I tried running ActiveSync in all versions of safe mode and regular mode with all options enabled and disabled.
My client paid a bundle for this phone and can’t change to anything else so later this week he is going to pay me to reformat his computer – always a last resort option.
During this long appointment I was able to play with Windows Mobile for a long time and I don’t get it. I don’t understand how people can take it seriously.
It runs like Microsoft Windows without being able to fine tune anything and without any shortcuts. There are very few diagnostic tools and there is no where to get deep down into the system.
Just to give you an idea of what it’s like to deal with Window Mobile – twice I was given the error, "The program you were working with has discovered an error and has had to shut down, do you want to report this problem to Microsoft?"
You will rarely hear a Windows Mobile user argue that their platform is superior. Most people only use it because A. They didn’t want to pay for a Treo or B. Their business required it for certain software.
A tear comes to my eye when I think that Palm may get smothered by Microsoft someday.
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