Windows Mobile Device Center is a

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

software program developed by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

, 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. In the Windows Task Manager, the associated process is called wcescomm.exe. O ...

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

contact Contact may refer to: Interaction Physical interaction * Contact (geology), a common geological feature * Contact lens or contact, a lens placed on the eye * Contact sport, a sport in which players make contact with other players or objects * ...

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 date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...

events, web browser favorites, and other files between

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...

devices and the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

operating system.

History

Windows Mobile Device Center was written as a successor to the

program that was previously used to synchronize

Windows CE Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE, Windows Powered and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products. Unlike Windows Embedded Standard, which is base ...

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, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

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

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...

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 that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file ...

, 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 Office and Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as cale ...

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

Windows Mail Mail (formerly Windows Mail) is an email client developed by Microsoft and included in Windows Vista and later versions of Windows. The main function of Mail is sending and receiving email. It is available as the successor to Outlook Express, wh ...

Windows Calendar Calendar is a personal calendar application made by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows. It offers synchronization of calendars using Microsoft Exchange Server, Outlook.com Apple's iCloud calendar service, and Google Calendar. It supports the popul ...

Windows Contacts Windows Contacts is a contact manager that is included in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11. It replaced but retains most of the functionality of Windows Address Book and worked with Windows Live Mail and the Vista v ...

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 through to 6.0. As such, it was bundled with several versions of Microsoft Windows, from ...

, 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'' * '' Inte ...

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 limi ...

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

, and for

legacy In law, a legacy is something held and transferred to someone as their inheritance, as by will and testament. Personal effects, family property, marriage property or collective property gained by will of real property. Legacy or legacies may refer ...

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, and use ...

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

Visual Studio Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from 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 platfor ...

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 Office and Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as Calen ...

2003 and later * Photos with

Windows Photo Gallery Windows Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery) is a discontinued image organizer, photo editor and photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suite. The product has been unavailable fo ...

* Videos with

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on ...

* 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 IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...

* 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