ActiveSync Speedup

Getting the HTC Touch synced properly with your stationary system

If you happen to have used PDAs using Microsoft's mobile operating system before, you have definitely come across ActiveSync. A nice piece of software that synchronizes all your contacts, calendar entries, tasks, notes, inbox, etc. with your stationary computer. Former devices used to come with a serial port or USB cradle and were easily set up. And synchronizing was a blast, even on serial connections it was fast and running. Microsoft's ActiveSync even allowed you to sync over a WiFi network or a Bluetooth connection, also at a nice speed.

Nowadays, in times of Windows Vista and security issues, Microsoft had to drop the latter feature and restricts syncing to secure connections as people reported having problems when connecting to other wireless networks. Therefore the HTC Touch comes with Microsoft's ActiveSync version 4.5, a new release for Windows XP. Under Vista, the Mobile Device Center takes care of it which works rather nicely and recognizes the smartphone shortly after connecting it for the first time.

But Windows XP surprises the HTC Touch user with a cold shower. Synchronization is incredibly slow and you will get instantly frustrated by the speed of it. Come on, we're living in 2007 and we can expect a couple of data to be transferred rather quickly. But unfortunately, the opposite is the case - when I first synchronized my HTC Touch it took me 14 (!) minutes to do an initial transfer! Even though it doesn't measure time, the following screenshot shows that process at work.

I tried to find the reason for this slow performance and did the following things:

• As I had updated to the latest version of ActiveSync I uninstalled it and reinstalled the version from HTC Touch's CD
• I installed a localized version of ActiveSync (as you might have already guessed, I'm running a German system)
• I made a total reset of the HTC Touch to give it a fresh start

None of that worked and I really got frustrated. After looking at the task manager during the sync process I found out that the firewall was rather busy and I soon found out the reason for that. ActiveSync 4.5 manages all transfer activities through the use of a virtual USB network connection. And this connection is treated just like any other outgoing and incoming connection in your computer: it is being monitored by the firewall!

As you can see the new Windows Mobile device is listed as a LAN connection. So what you need to do is to loosen the settings for that connection in your firewall setup. Interestingly Microsoft seems to be aware of that problem also, as they put up a help page dealing with exactly this problem.

Tutorial on how to speed up ActiveSync and HTC Touch

In a nutshell, what do you need to do to fix the ActiveSync Problems?

First of all you need to grant the following ActiveSync components access through your firewall:

• Rapimgr.exe
• Wcesmgr.exe
• Wcescomm.exe

Just take a look at your firewall settings, you should find options there to allow individual applications that access. All these files can be found in your standard ActiveSync installation folder, usually "C:\Program Files\Microsoft ActiveSync\".

But wait, that's not all. You also need to allow ActiveSync to communicate through your ports by opening the following ones for unrestricted usage:

Inbound TCP ports:

• 990
• 999
• 5678
• 5721
• 26675

Outbound UDP:

• 5679

You may have to restart your firewall or computer after you've made these changes, then freshly connect your HTC Touch to the system and, keeping your fingers crossed, you'll be syncing at fast speed again.

There's one more thing...

Alright, assuming that you've done the previous steps and opened up your firewall to allow ActiveSync to work properly but your HTC Touch still doesn't want to synchronize fast enough, even then there's still hope.

In the HTC Touch's regular start screen, tap on "Start", "Settings", "Connections", "USB to PC". If you're experiencing slow performance of your device, make sure to uncheck the extended network functions entry. That should definitely solve your problems then.