Vista, WMDC and Microsoft Windows Mobile Device Emulator

In the past I had always assumed that for some reason or another Vista, Windows Mobile Device Center and Windows Mobile Device Emulator just didn't work together, i.e. i could never get "Active Sync" to work. So much so that I even reverted back to using XP as my primary development environment. Lately I haven't had that option due to driver incompatibilities with my laptop so I've effectively avoided doing any real Windows Mobile development.

However I recently purchased a Samsung Omnia* and wanted to write a quick app for it. Vista syncs fine with real devices but I just couldn't get it to work with the emulator. Seems my thoughts were justified as Microsoft Device Emulator v2 is required for Vista. To my surprise I already had V3 installed (not sure whether through VS 2008 or Windows Mobile 6 SDKs) but sync still no worky...

Turns out you have to enable DMA in WMDC. Did this and saw "Connect to - DMA Default" message flash up on the emulator. Done. I thought. It didn't actually sync though and after 20 more minutes of stuffing about i still couldn't get it to work. Finally stumbled upon a post by Jason R. Shaver that states

Make sure WMDC is set to listen to connections using DMA, then uncheck it and recheck it (fixes it sometimes)

. Lo and behold everything worked...shithouse!

* "Should have bought an iPhone" I hear you say, well a) the wife has one already and i'm not that fussed by it and b) I need a Windows Mobile Device for an upcoming (real) work project :)