Windows Mobile Device Center is a

synchronization Synchronization is the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. For example, the Conductor (music), conductor of an orchestra keeps the orchestra synchronized or ''in time''. Systems that operate with all parts in synchrony are sa ...

software program developed by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, and the successor to

ActiveSync ActiveSync is a mobile data synchronization app developed by Microsoft, originally released in 1996. It synchronizes data with handheld devices and desktop computers. Overview ActiveSync allows a mobile device to be synchronized with either a d ...

. It is designed to synchronize various content including music, video, contacts,

calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A calendar date, date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is ...

events, web browser favorites, and other files between

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDA). Designed to be the portable equivalent of the Windows desktop OS in the emerging Mobile device, mobile/port ...

devices and the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

operating system.

History

Windows Mobile Device Center was written as a successor to the

program that was previously used to synchronize

Windows CE Windows CE, later known as Windows Embedded CE and Windows Embedded Compact, is a discontinued operating system developed by Microsoft for mobile and embedded devices. It was part of the Windows Embedded family and served as the software foun ...

based devices with Windows operating systems prior to

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

. The first public release was available in October 2006 as a

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

version meant for use with Windows Vista RC1.Sampat, Mel
''WMDC for Vista RC1 (and higher) is now available for public download''
MSDN Blogs. Retrieved 8 September 2007. In February 2007, the first official release was made available for download, and in June 2007, Windows Mobile Device Center was updated to work with the

6 operating system. With the release of Windows Mobile Device Center, Pocket PC 2000 and Pocket PC 2002 operating systems were effectively phased out of full native support with Windows Vista.Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 for Windows Vista
Microsoft. Retrieved 8 September 2007. However, basic connectivity became available for these devices with the 6.1 version release. Other versions of Windows, such as Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 can also be WMDC enabled.

Features

While Windows Vista has a base driver built-in to interface with Windows Mobile devices in

Windows Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application and default desktop environment that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user i ...

, Windows Mobile Device Center offers a front-end for users to integrate their data in multiple Windows applications. The base driver in Windows Vista allows browsing the device, copying files and syncing with Windows Media Player. For complete functionality including synchronization of tasks, calendar data, contacts, email etc. with

Microsoft Office Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft 365 software suites. Primarily popular as an email client for businesses, Outlook also includes functions such as Calendari ...

, Windows Mobile Device Center needs to be downloaded, which includes the additional drivers as well. Synchronization with

Windows Mail Mail (later Microsoft Outlook) is a discontinued email client developed by Microsoft and included in Windows Vista and later versions of Windows. It was available as the successor to Outlook Express, which was either included with, or released f ...

, Windows Calendar,

Windows Contacts Windows Contacts was a contact manager that was included in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8. It replaced but retains most of the functionality of Windows Address Book and worked with Windows Live Mail and the Vista version of Windows Ma ...

Outlook Express Outlook Express, formerly known as Microsoft Internet Mail and News, is a discontinued email and news client included with Internet Explorer versions 3.0 to 6.0. As such, it was bundled with several versions of Microsoft Windows, from Windows ...

, Outlook 2010 x64 and any version of Outlook prior to Outlook 2003 is not supported. Whenever a Windows Mobile device is connected, the ''Mobile Device Center'' pane pops up giving options to manage media and other files on the device, as well as control their settings. Ways to

interface Interface or interfacing may refer to: Academic journals * ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society * '' Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics'' * '' Inter ...

Windows Mobile devices with Windows Mobile Device Center include

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

, and for

legacy Legacy or Legacies may refer to: Arts and entertainment Comics * " Batman: Legacy", a 1996 Batman storyline * '' DC Universe: Legacies'', a comic book series from DC Comics * ''Legacy'', a 1999 quarterly series from Antarctic Press * ''Legacy ...

purposes, Serial. However, synchronizing via the serial port is not activated by default, and it is required that the user alters the

Windows Registry The Windows Registry is a hierarchical database that stores low-level settings for the Microsoft Windows operating system and for applications that opt to use the registry. The kernel, device drivers, services, Security Accounts Manager, a ...

to do so.Windows Mobile Device Center Troubleshooting Guide
Microsoft. Retrieved 8 September 2007.

Visual Studio Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) developed by Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including web site, websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development ...

2005 and 2008 came with Remote Tools, that could be used to edit the registry of a tethered mobile device, and view the running processes. These Remote Tools utilised the

Service, part of Windows Mobile Device Center Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 had the ability to synchronize the following: * PIM information with

Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft 365 software suites. Primarily popular as an email client for businesses, Outlook also includes functions such as Calendari ...

2003 and later * Photos with

Windows Photo Gallery Windows Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery) is a discontinued image organizer, raster graphics editor, photo editor and image sharing, photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suit ...

* Videos with

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP, officially referred to as Windows Media Player Legacy to retronym, distinguish it from Windows Media Player (2022), the new Windows Media Player introduced with Windows 11) is the first media player (application soft ...

* Music with

* Tasks and Calendar Events, Synced to

2007 * Favorites with

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...

* Folders/General files with

* OneNote Notes taken with OneNote Mobile * Windows Mobile programs and version updates

Major version releases

* Windows Mobile Device Center Beta 3, released on October 6, 2006. (First public release) * Windows Mobile Device Center 6.0, released on February 1, 2007. (First official release, Outlook 2002 supported.) * Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1, released in June 2007. (Added support for Windows Mobile 6 devices, added Windows 7 support, removed Outlook 2002 support.)

References

External links

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/troubleshoot/windows/win32/description-of-windows-mobile-device-center

Windows Mobile Device Center (archived 25 July 2008)
{{Calendaring software Data synchronization Windows Mobile Calendaring software

History

Features

Major version releases

See also

References

External links