.net – Emulator not connecting to Windows Mobile Device Center after Emulator soft reset

I thought I'd add some notes to this so I could close it off. Generally I found not the following to make it a little more stable:

1) Don't setup a partnership. While this doesn't provide a major issue, if there is a partnership in place, a blank dialog window pops up whenever I connect a device.

2) Always make sure you connect the device (via USB) to the same USB port that it was first on when the device driver was first installed. Moving the lead to a different port will often cause the device to not connect.

3) If it doesn't connect then opening WMDC and un-ticking allow DMA connections, close the WMDC screen, re-open it and re-tick the DMA option, and it will generally suddenly connect.

4) Also if you're using the device emulator and have it cradled, ensure you disconnect the ActiveSync connection before saving the state of the device when closing it. If you fail to do this it will no be able to connect when you restart the device, until you fiddle about with the connection enough for it to realise that it's not actually connected.

If anybody else has any tips to making it more stable then feel free to add them in.

OK, I have not found anyway to get Active Sync on Windows 7, but I have figured out the incantations to get around the missing connect button. (I say incantations, because getting this to work seems very obscure and arcane to me.)

So here is what you do:

1. Fire up the emulator and cradle it
2. Fire up Windows Mobile Device Center.
3. Next go to the Connection Settings and change it off of DMA. Hit OK.
4. Open up the Connection Settings again and change it to DMA. Hit OK.

It should now connect.