[whydidnt]

Originally Posted by JoeLevi

What about an option for those of us that use and Exchange Server and Data Plan to sync our PIM data and a storage card to transfer installers (.cab) and data to/from the device?

I don't have to worry about ActiveSync nor whatever Vista uses... just the device and my data plan and my Exchange Server... life is happy.

I've slowly come to the realization that this is what MS wants. They could care less about consumer's purchase and use of these devices. Why bother with a working Sync solution on the desktop when you don't include any software that can sync with the device anyway? It's obvious that the development team only syncs with an Exchange Server and in MS's myopic viewpoint that's how ALL of us should also.

We are coming upon 10 years of PPC devices and MS NEVER made the desktop sync robust and stable. MS and it's OEM partners have NEVER produced an eye catching device aimed at the consumer market. The bottom line is if you don't want to buy 100's of these things for your corporation, they just don't care about you. Oh sure, you can buy one, but good luck getting full functionality out of it. The fact that the desktop sync solution gets more horribly broken with each release is a perfect example of this philosophy. :evil:

[whydidnt]

Originally Posted by JoeLevi

What about an option for those of us that use and Exchange Server and Data Plan to sync our PIM data and a storage card to transfer installers (.cab) and data to/from the device?

I don't have to worry about ActiveSync nor whatever Vista uses... just the device and my data plan and my Exchange Server... life is happy.

I've slowly come to the realization that this is what MS wants. They could care less about consumer's purchase and use of these devices. Why bother with a working Sync solution on the desktop when you don't include any software that can sync with the device anyway? It's obvious that the development team only syncs with an Exchange Server and in MS's myopic viewpoint that's how ALL of us should also.

We are coming upon 10 years of PPC devices and MS NEVER made the desktop sync robust and stable. MS and it's OEM partners have NEVER produced an eye catching device aimed at the consumer market. The bottom line is if you don't want to buy 100's of these things for your corporation, they just don't care about you. Oh sure, you can buy one, but good luck getting full functionality out of it. The fact that the desktop sync solution gets more horribly broken with each release is a perfect example of this philosophy. :evil:

[DaleReeck]

All my everyday use machines are Vista, but I've kept one XP machine to use as a dedicated "sync" machine. WMDC is c r a p, plain and simple.

[Jerry Raia]

I can't go backwards, Vista & WMDC. :lol:

[indiekiduk]

I've found WMDC just an awful experience because of the following:

1) The green tray icon no longer shows sync status by animating or changing colour and clicking it goes to something called sync center which needs more clicks to get to device center. I never seem to know what WMDC is up to without bringing up the main screen which shows the connecting label.
2) Updating to WMDC 6.1 completely broke the network driver and my devices won't only sync if I turned off advanced network functionality on them.
3) If you have an explorer window open which is showing a folder on the device when you disconnect the window jumps back to "Computer" meaning when you reconnect you need to browse all the way back to where you were.
4) You can't see the windows folder in file explorer in vista until you turn on show hidden files. But this then makes the Vista home folder a mess of link files which are there to make the new home folder layout backwards compatible with XP software which save stuff to My Documents.
5) The WMDC main window is an ugly beast - main window too big with a stupid big device icon, important functions like browse the device buried in ugly big animated menus. Too many clicks overall, using WMDC is at least 3 times slower to do anything than with ActiveSync.

Yeh ActiveSync wasn't great but it did the job, hopefully we will see ActiveSync compatibility added to Vista soon and WMDC withdrawn.

[indiekiduk]

PocketPCThoughts, would you fancy starting an online petition to request Microsoft posting how to enable ActiveSync in Vista?

[Ed Hansberry]

Originally Posted by indiekiduk

PocketPCThoughts, would you fancy starting an online petition to request Microsoft posting how to enable ActiveSync in Vista?

I'd fancy a petition to just give us something workable. Getting AS 4.x isn't a solution IMHO, because that is just going from "sucks" to "sucks less." Let's be daring and go for "doesn't suck so much." :? ActiveSync has been out since 1999. 8 years. Is "doesn't suck so much" too much to ask for?

[Darren Behan]

I've posted alot on WMDC recently, here and elsewhere, so I won't repeat all of the reasons I think WMDC is the worst sync implementation I have ever seen. Suffice it to say that if I turned out this piece of garbage at my job, I'd be unemployed in a heartbeat and rightfully so.

MS might wish to note that many, if not most, of the posters on this thread so far are very experienced PPC users who are typically supportive of the platform. It's one thing that the platform has never been particularly friendly to 'normal' users, it's another when you're driving away your core audience (which happen to function as your best marketing tool). There was a time when I'd recommend PPC. Now that's always prefaced with 'Are you using Vista or do you ever plan to?'

Consider my name added to the petition in big capital letters.

db

[dunneldeen]

I had a lot of problems with WMDC right after I got my new laptop. I was on the verge of going back to XP because if that and many other reasons. I decided to Upgrade to Vista Ultimate (to see if it will solve a few other annoyances I had with my stock version of Vista), because I was able to get a very good deal on the upgrade. Surprisingly, it solved my WMDC issue, and a couple of others as well.

It was only a delay, though. I eventually went back to XP because of all the other unresolved issues, incompatibilities, and dog-@$$ slowness of Vista. I liked Vista, but all the problems proved too much of a distraction.

[hamishmacdonald]

I had a lot of problems at first with WMDC and Vista, but I have to admit that, now that my PC environment is settled and I'm not trying to find drivers or add new devices, everything is working fine for me.

That's not to say that any number of people on these boards couldn't design something better, but PIM data, files, music and videos, and even OneNote data -- they're all synchronising just fine for me, just to be fair to the MS development team here.

[buss]

I really liked Vista's slick interface and the secuirty features, but sync problems and a lack of compatiblity with some older software had me rolling back to XP.