Can I recover overwritten calendar entries lost during sync?

[KB]

I have an iPAQ 2215, running Pocket PC 2003, on which I had edited my Calendar info. When I put the iPAQ in the synchronizing cradle, ActiveSync prompted me to synchronize the Calendar folder, but not thinking about the direction of synchronizing being set as "PC to Pocket PC", I inadvertently selected "Synchronize". Apparently, the edited entries in the iPAQ were overwritten by the pre-edited version in the PC.
Is there any way to recover the edited version that had existed in the iPAQ, or any software that allows this? I also had not backed up my iPAQ after I had edited the Calendar info.

Another question: Is there any way to repeat keystrokes with Pocket PC 2003 by continuing to solidly press a key, especially the "backspace", "space", "forward arrow" and "back arrow" keys?
And is there any software that I can add to allow this, even if it is feature of onscreen keyboards?

Thanks

[Jonathan Schmidt]

Hi, KB.

Unfortunately, it sounds like there's some bad news. If the calendar entries have been overwritten and the "good" entry doesn't exist either in Outlook or on the PPC, it is lost forever. The only other way I know of recovering entries is if you had a backup of your Outlook Personal Folder (*.pst) file.

It's not quite clear from your message if you had a given calendar entry that was modified both on your desktop and on your PPC? If this is the case, ActiveSync will usually recognize this, and mark them as having a conflict. Here's a snippet from the ActiveSync help file:

If a problem or conflict occurs when an item is synchronized, it will be marked as unresolved in ActiveSync and on your device. You can resolve items at your convenience.
ActiveSync may not be able to synchronize an item for many different reasons. For example, if you are trying to access your Microsoft Outlook information and the server you are trying to connect to is unavailable, ActiveSync will not be able to synchronize your Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, or Inbox items.

Or a conflict could occur because an item has been changed on both your mobile device and your desktop computer. For example, you have lunch with Bob Jones, and during lunch he mentions his job title has changed to "Treasurer." You quickly make this change on your device. As soon as you get back to your office, but before you have had a chance to synchronize, Bob calls and tells you his company recently changed its name to "XYZ Widgets." Since you are at your office, you update this information on your desktop computer. The two versions of the Bob Jones contact will conflict with each other the next time you synchronize and will be registered as an unresolved item.

You can modify your conflict resolution settings so that ActiveSync does not register conflicts as unresolved items. Instead, you select the device or desktop computer as the default version, and ActiveSync will automatically replace the information on the other computer.

If this didn't work as described here, you might have an outdated version of ActiveSync. Try downloading the latest build of 3.7.1, which was just released yesterday. You should be able to download it from:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/results.aspx?productID=44C5CD04-E8D3-4E3A-A3A5-31A4D151F304&freetext=&DisplayLang=en

Hope this helps.

Jonathan Schmidt