Synchronizing Public Contact Folders

[jamisonw]

I am getting frustrated with Microsoft's inability to sync to public contact folders. :evil: I have tried Pocket Lookout, but it doesn't work well and does not sync to the Pocket PC contacts app, which you need for all the phone functionality to work. I was using MS Pocket Contact Synchronizer, but PCS broke with my upgrade to Outlook 2003 and I do not want to return to Outlook XP now that I am comfortable with 2003. I have a ton of clients who are seriously looking at the Pocket PC Phone Edition and/or Smartphone so they can sync with Exchange Server wirelessly, but if they cannot use their shared public contact folders they may all end up buying Blackberry's. Does anyone have any thoughts? Right now I am just copying all my public contacts to my personal contacts folder so I have them available to me on the road, but that just doesn't cut it on a client's network.

[Don Sorcinelli]

AFAIK, this is still not directly supported. There really isn't a simple workaround to this, either (outside of doing the things you have already tried).

Even with Exchange 2003, this limitation is still around (at least in conjunction with PPC 2002 devices - I haven't had a WM2003 device to check this out against). Amazingly, even with Outlook Mobile Access (WAP interface), searching contacts is limited to your personal Contact folder. Outlook Mobile Access (browser-based) gives you access, but does not render well in Pocket IE under 2002.

Even if you do use these solutions, they require a wireless or passthru connection.

After all of this time and all of the focus on improving Exchange for mobility, you would think that offline access to Public Folder data via ActiveSync would have gotten on the radar... :roll:

DonS