[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam Software Upgradin] mikgyver:
SUCCESS

After 5 months of trying I have finally been able to get my wife's outlook calendar to sync with her HTC Touch Pro.

PROBLEM:

All we wanted was to sync the info on her Hotmail (er, Windows Live) account (mail, contacts, calendar) with her new 'smart' phone. Everything being Microsoft, this should be a piece of cake, right? Her Palm Pilot was able to do this 15 years ago, so one wouldn't think this operation to be too complex. Ohh, but enter Microsoft cluster**** world.

Windows Live does over the air sync mail and contacts quite nicely with Windows Mobile, no complaints there. Calendar, however, must only be for those wussy iPhone types. So, the solution is to buy Outlook (we got 2007), install it on a desktop. Then download Outlook connector, and sync Outlook with Windows Live. Now Outlook can be used to view Hotmail. We should be golden, right, with this unfortunate solution of having to cable-sync the calendar. Nope.

Every time the phone gets plugged in, WMDC gives the error 'Desktop Synchronization cannot be completed. Reduce your mailbox size by deleting some items and folders and try again Support Code 85010017'. Also, there was the problem of Outlook randomly locking up, and requiring a reboot to get it going again. My wife gave up trying to use Outlook, and just logged onto the website to do anything. It took a while to realize that it was after she plugged her phone in was when Outlook took a hiatus.

So, after researching, I tried all the tricks, and nothing worked. I was starting with a fresh install of Windows Mobile 6.5.x and a fresh install of Windows 7, so legacy data wasn't the problem, though I repetetivly tried completely removing all partnerships, removing WMDC and it's registry values, etc. I reduced my ost file from 200mb to 20mb (meg, not gig, how could it have a problem with that), to no avail. There wasn't even have a pst file.

SOLUTION:

When setting up a partnership using Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC), when selecting Calendar, 'Sync Settings' would become active. From that, changing from 'past 1 month' to 'past 2 weeks' eliminated the 85010017 error code, and supposedly the sync was successful.

It just didn't appear to be successful, since no appointments were transferred to the phone. However, I found that if I created a new appointment, it would sync over (both ways). This led me to find that if I edited and saveD the existing appointments, it would sync over. Apparrently, it just doesn't want to sync existing events. So after resaving all her existing events, we now have success. And Outlook doesn't freeze anymore.

ALTERNATIVE:

So, one way to avoid all this hassle would have been to use Google Calendar Sync to sync her data to a Google Calandar, then add an ActiveSync Exchange serve to the Google Calandar, which would have provided over the air syncing of her calendar to her phone. So the chain would have been Windows Live> Outlook Connector> Outlook> Google Calendar Sync> Google Calendar> ActiveSync/Exchange Server on the phone> Outlook Mobile. Simple as can be, right? I did try this, and it does work well.

But my thinking was this was too much room for error, I would be better doing it the proper way and just syncing her phone directly to the computer with a cable and all Microsoft software. Silly me, I should have known that third parties can make more reliable use of Microsoft data than Microsoft can.

BONUS:

The one nice thing is I found a way around Windows Mobile limitation of only one calendar, sort of.

I wanted to have multiple calendars in Outlook, so we could have shared items on one (like bulk trash pickup) that both of us would see (I also have a WM phone, an HTC Touch Diamond), but I wouldn't have to look at all her daily events, and I wouldn't have to see hers.

So, the work around for two calendars is to use catagories in her Outlook, with one being a 'Shared' category. When she syncs her phone she gets all items on her phone, and can even create new events on her phone with categories. So she is good. Then I installed gSyncit on the desktop, which allows us to sync specific categories to a Google calendar. One calendar is free, and to do additional calendars would mean paying the $14.95 for the program, which I don't think was bad, even though I stuck with the one free one. Then, gSyncit is again installed on my work computer, again having those Google calendar events go to a Shared category. Then, all those events are nicely sync'd over the companies exchange server to my phone, again in categories.

Another way to get multiple calendars to sync with the phone would have been to use almost all of these same steps, but with OggSync replacing gSyncit and ActiveSync, but at $30 per year, there is no way I am going to pay that much for conveluted patch. Which brings me to the moral of the story:

DO NOT BUY A WINDOWS MOBILE PHONE:

It is the worst excuse for an operating system that I have seen since DOS. There is no way Microsoft should be allowing it to exist. It does more harm for them than good.

I've suffered through over a decade of God-awful Microsoft Word. I've suffered through the Vista. But WM is the elephant that broke the camel's back. After an eternity of being a Windows promoter, I am now telling everyone to avoid Microsoft at all costs. As the guy that everyone goes to for advice, I am now sending them to Apple, be it Mac or iPhone. Or Android. Or simply forgo the technology, you'll be better off without the extreme amount of maintenance it requires to keep Windows going.

Goodbye, Microsoft. You've past critical-mass, and can no longer function.