Monday 13 March 2006

Tired of cancelling ActiveSync Partnership Wizard?

If you're a developer using Windows Mobile or Windows CE devices, you may be a bit fed up with the Partnership Wizard that appears when you connect a device. If you decide to create a partnership every time, your list of partnerships grows huge, you keep having to think of a unique name, and you still have to do it every time after hard resetting the device. Alternatively, if you cancel out or opt to connect as Guest, you have to do this every time you connect. After nearly five years of mobile device development I'm sick at the sight of this wizard.

There is another option: to use an undocumented registry key to stop the wizard appearing. Open Registry Editor (as an administrator) and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows CE Services. Create a new DWORD value called GuestOnly and set its value to 1. The wizard will no longer appear on connecting a device. If you ever do need to create a partnership, you'll need to set this value back to 0 before connecting.

If you already have a partnership with a device, it will still connect with its partnership, rather than as Guest, even if this option is set.

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