The Moth

Click on the links in this post to unveil the screenshots

Plug your Windows Mobile device to your Vista machine, and you get greeted by Windows Mobile Device Center.

If you click on "Pictures, Music and Video" then you'll get Media Player with the option to sync media.

Clicking on "File Management" brings up Portable Devices in explorer, allowing you to transfer files between the device and computer. On my device I have a 2GB SD card, so explorer shows that too. Another way of arriving to a similar display is simply by browsing Computer (no longer called My Computer).

The 3rd and final option of Mobile Device Center is "Change PC and connection settings".

By the way, if you don't plug a device and you want to view the Mobile Device Center window (or if you close the window and want to get it back), finding it is not easy. First I opened the "Control Panel" and naively thought it would be under "Mobile PC". I tried the "Mobility Center" but no luck there either. Finally, I found it under "Additional Options".

So, to sum up, the great news is that Vista has the *base* functionality of ActiveSync built in. The bad news is that (in build 5384 at least) not all the features of ActiveSync are available (plus AS isn't supported on Vista).

To finish on a positive note, by Vista RTM the Windows Mobile Device Center base application (probably complemented by a supplement) *will* completely replace ActiveSync. At that point we'll be able to target a real device from VS2005 for NETCF development!

UPDATE WMDC is here!