First Look: ActiveSync 4.0

Microsoft ActiveSync version 3 is soon to be 6 years old, as its 6th anniversary approaches we can reflect on the rapid changes that have occurred in the Handheld PC, Windows CE and PDA world at large. Through the flood of new ideas and technology which has sculpted the way in which we both value and use our PDA's, ActiveSync itself has for better or worse remained a constant in most of our lives.

After five Windows CE core releases and with the next generation of Windows Embedded Platform Operating System - Windows Mobile Magneto expected to be weeks away, Microsoft has finally shaken up the ActiveSync mix, and is preparing to release version 4 of its Windows CE Sync client.

We take a comprehensive look at the new ActiveSync, and reveal that for the Handheld PC community, ActiveSync 4 is going to be a mixed blessing.

Read our first look article and then have your say here on the forums.

Review: ActiveSync 4.0

Chris, it was a real pleasure to read your article. Even though I run WindowsME, safely excluding me from any update to AS 4.0, you had me riveted. What a thorough, thorough job.

Thanks,
Jake

Jake,

Thank-you for your kind words. It has been an entertaining one, as we had to wait for the public RTM (After Bill Gate's keynote) of ActiveSync 4.0 before we could post.

It has actually been ready since the second!!

This is certainly a mixed blessing for us, and I'm looking forward to finally ironing out all the unknowns from from release myself as we see and hear more on Windows Mobile 5.0.

i agree, great article

I have test it, but avantgo 3.3 cannot sync the contect .....strange

Oh yes one thing I neglected to mention in the article was that AS4 no longer comes with mallink (AvantGo) client.
If you reinstall it does it pick up ok?

Thank you Chris! You just seem to wow me every time you give a new review. Very in-depth and professional!

Thanks Yoldering,

I have to say though, I'm a little disapointed that people aren't in here screaming and shouting about the release and what it means for us here in the H/PC community... so far the PPC sites have made more commentary on the article than those who I wrote it for

If people aren't complaining, Microsoft will never hear us.

Unless I'm alerted to do otherwise, I usually automatically update AS as soon as a new version come up ... But thanks to your TIMELY review, you have no doubt saved me hours of aggravation. I owe you big time cousin Chris.* and for that you now have my everlasting forgiveness. You are my hero!

Chris

Dare I say it?

One can only (sadly) assume that folks within the H/PC community have come to accept each blow to our favorite platform, as inevitiable. Sigh!

Chris,

Perhaps one reason for a guarded response from the HPC community is that due to your fine tutorials and forum help, most people probably have their AS 3.* in working order. So another update, an update without too many particular advantages (especially if Bluetooth isn't a user need), probably doesn't thrill every HPCer.

In fact, AS terrifies the average user. I use 3.7, and limp along okay--it would never occur to me to update unless 3.7 was broken. Still, my heart is in my mouth every time I try to synch. That, and MS updates have a bad reputation, especially when trying to accomodate older hardware, ESPECIALLY older PDA hardware (Psion users dread updates and patches).

So maybe the silence isn't as tepid as it is relieved, a kind of "There by the grace of ActiveSynch go I."

Jake

The dicussion here goes beyond the standard finger corssing once you've double clicked the installer .exe.

What has happened here with ActiveSync 4 is rapidly going to become a problem for users.
This time next year we should be looking at the NT6 code - "Longhorn", what if ActiveSync 3.8 doesn't work on longhorn?

Remember this has been a political move to pay hommage to the Support Life Cycle policy. There is no technical reason to have removed the legacy support - not while Serial connections are still maintained.

Then there are the downsizing of the communications support... a synic could say that it is a move designed to rail road you into upgrading to a WM5.0 device, and to force companies to buy Exchange Server, buy MIS and there for buy Windows Server 2003 should they require Wireless sync support.

There is a huge debate to be had here. Especially if you just got yourself a Jornada 680. How do you feel, whst do you think. Are they right to do this. I would genuinly like to hear what people feel about this.

One thing is for sure. If 3.8 is to be the last ActiveSync release with compatibility for the broadest range of the devices that tihs site support. People need to start exploring migrating from earlier versions of AS3 so that compatibility can be preserved against Windows and Office for as long as is technically possible.

Jake: you could try 3.8, it works better for me than 3.7, i had issues with 3.7 but these are gone now with 3.8. though i have no idea what your particular problem is.
as for psions... AS is much better in my opinion than psiwin. i never knew with psiwin if the connection to the pc will be successful or not. trial & error... AS is absolutely reliable in this respect...

Edited by cmonex 2005-05-12 12:28 PM

Hi, Chris,

You're right, of course--it may well be a community that has its head in the sand. With people like me digging the hole. But I don't think we should underestimate the horror of updating, and it's a main reason why people no longer scramble for anything coming out MS's lair. IEs remain unpatched, MS OSs go without updates, and that's because people have no time or little inclination to go through the hassle. I stagger along with a 4-year-old laptop and WindowsME not out of parsimony, but out of sheer reluctance to take on a new OS, new hardware. Life is too damn short, and I already spend too much time in front of a computer.

Obviously, just because it's painful doesn't mean you shouldn't do it (I mean, how else would we get through high school?), and ultimately, HPC users, as you say, are in big trouble. We can only hope that 3.8 will have its support for the next platform, which goes back to your sound argument of having one's head in the sand

One could argue that people turn to HPCs precisely because the OSs are far more manageable than a desktop's, automatically making them content with less. I synch, therefore I am.


Cmonex--thanks for the 3.8 advice. But for now, at only this very moment, I'm problem-free with 3.7. And as someone who synchs a Psion and a J-720 with Outlook 2000, I agree with you all the way--PsiWin 2.3.3 makes AS 3.8 look like Nirvana.

Jake

Hi, Chris,

I just finished reading your AS followup and I have to chortle. If this is true, if the lack of remote synching (I'll take my chances over WiFi, thank you very much) truly vexes the community, then 3.8 may make its round to the next OS platform, unsupported or not.

Another MS update failure may be exactly what 3.8 needs.

Jake