How To Sync via Bluetooth with WMDC in Windows Vista
Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) (aka ActiveSync) in Windows Vista supports synchronization between PDA and PC via Bluetooth connection. However, occasionally for odd reason such as your computer or Pocket PC is running on WidComm Bluetooth driver stack, the Bluetooth sync simply doesn’t work by simply selecting ‘Bluetooth’ in ‘Connection Settings’ in WMDC’s ‘Allow connection to one of the following’ option.
When a mobile device such as Pocket PC Phone detects and connects to a desktop or notebook computer via Bluetooth, it cannot determine if there’s any ActiveSync or WMDC service running in the background in the PC. To make thing worse, WMDC has dropped the ability to manually set the listening port for Bluetooth COM port. The older ActiveSync has this feature to support manual configuration of Bluetooth listening COM port.
The following registry hack provides the solution to unable to sync via Bluetooth with WMDC problem in Windows Vista. The registry hack has to be applied on desktop PC or laptop, and not the mobile device.
- Run Registry Editor (type regedit in Start Search and press Enter). Confirm any UAC dialog.
- Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows CE Services
- In the right pane, locate the value name “SerialPort”. Modify the value data from the default value of “Bluetooth or “Infrared” to “COM4″, where COM4 is the virtual COM port associated to your Bluetooth incoming COM port. If your PC uses different COM port number, then choose the right COM port as the value (e.g. COM5, COM6 etc).
- Exit Registry Editor.
Once the registry is set, WMDC will bind to a Bluetooth virtual COM port as incoming listening port instead of the generic Bluetooth name, which may not work for non-standard driver stack.
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Entries (RSS)
February 8th, 2009 05:36
Great, It worked!!!! Thanks
February 5th, 2009 05:00
The only comment I would make is that I needed to make sure that the baud rate set was the same, the registry had a different rate to that specified against the com port in the bluetooth settings, once they were the same everything worked great.
Thanks muchly.
October 1st, 2008 00:34
Awesome instructions. Thanks very much for posting about this.
September 7th, 2008 23:32
Same problem. It still doesn’t work. I cannot create a outgoing COM # that is the same as what my computer is using. WM6 won’t allow it for some reason.
February 11th, 2008 04:16
[...] een verbinding te maken? En krijg je een foutmelding? Welk apparaat heb je? Edit: hier staat wat: How To Sync via Bluetooth with WMDC in Windows Vista
December 8th, 2007 12:18
I tried this, but no luck. There are a number of posts where this is the problem. When you try to sync ftom the BT deivce you get a message that there is no partnership with a PC with activesync. Seems like the problem you are adressing but it doesn’t fix the problem.
HP dv9619us with Vista and WMDC 6.1
Treo 700WX/Verizon
Bluetooth can transfer files via beaming so that is partially working. Activesync works via USB so that’s partially working.
Any suggestions would be great.