Hello all,

I am totally new to pocketpc's and activesync and I did some reading
on the internet and in help files but I am very confused whether this
info also applies to my personal settings. First I'll tell you exactly
what I have and then I'll ask the questions:

I have a Samsung Omnia i900 smartphone running on WM6.1 that I bought
in Belgium, Europe and I have Proximus as cell phone network provider.
For internet at home my ISP is Telenet which gives me a mailbox ending
with domain telenet.be for which I can create up to 5 email accounts
(I use 2 addresses). On my laptop I am using Windows XP Pro with MS
Outlook 2003. I managed to sync outlook from the laptop to the
smartphone via a USB cable and ActiveSync. The data that I synced is:
contacts, calendar, email, tasks, notes and files, so basically
everything. This was successful and I now have an oulook email folder
on my smartphone that contains everything that my laptop's outlook
has.

In outlook email on my smartphone when I select menu, send/receive is
greyed out. So I assume I have to set up an email account to be able
to receive email on my smartphone. I added this account with the exact
same settings as in outlook on the laptop and named the account "my
email". Now, besides the folders "messaging" and "outlook email" I
also have the folder "my email". From this folder I can click send/
receive and in comes my new mail.

Now the questions:
Q1: When I now click send/receive on my laptop I will get the same
mails, as if the mails were all kept on the server. Does this mean
that my smartphone is by default set to keep everything on the server?
I couldn't find any setting for this in my phone. On my laptop however
I see that it is configured to NOT keep mails on the server. Does this
mean that if I receive mails on my laptop, I will not anymore be able
to receive them on my phone?

Q2: Why does my phone have 2 different folders for email? One "my
email" folder with an inbox, outbox, trash etc and with the account
settings I created, and one outlook email folder with also an inbox,
outbox, trash, and all other folders that can only be synced with my
laptop. Why can't they be merged? Like in outlook on the laptop where
I have one "personal folders" that contains everything and from where
I can send + receive + organise/save emails in separate folders and
even choose to send from one of both email addresses that I have (Send
from xxx or send from yyy). If I now want to add my 2nd email address
into my phone, I will have 3 different folders instead of one! What is
the logic?

Q3: When I want to send an email with my phone, I've tried this via
the "outlook email" folder as well as the "my email folder" but the
message stays unsent in the outbox of my phone and after a minute or
so I get the error message "The message(s) could not be sent. Check
that you have network coverage and that your account information is
correct. Then try sending again.". Did I do something wrong?

Q4: What if my laptop would crash and I want to put all mail folders,
tasks, notes, files back to my laptop OR when my phone has failed and
I want to restore the other way? I have tried this to test ActiveSync
by first backing up my outlook.pst file on the laptop and then I
deleted my contacts from the phone memory. Then I synced and to my
amazement - even before I could check settings in activesync - as soon
as I connected the usb cable it started synchronising immediately and
all contacts on my laptop were deleted!! Thank god I always make
backups! Can someone please explain the general philosophy that
microsoft uses behind this activesync stuff? I've read lots of people
complain that they lost all their data in this process so it does not
seem very safe to me.

I'm going to stop writing now or nobody is ever going to read all this
but I still have a lot of question marks.

Thanks in advance for your help.

"Delta007bhd" <Delta007bhd@telenet.be> wrote in message
news:d40771da-950d-4eba-b313-a425941a1994@z1g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
> Hello all,
>
> I am totally new to pocketpc's and activesync and I did some reading
> on the internet and in help files but I am very confused whether this
> info also applies to my personal settings. First I'll tell you exactly
> what I have and then I'll ask the questions:
>
> I have a Samsung Omnia i900 smartphone running on WM6.1 that I bought
> in Belgium, Europe and I have Proximus as cell phone network provider.
> For internet at home my ISP is Telenet which gives me a mailbox ending
> with domain telenet.be for which I can create up to 5 email accounts
> (I use 2 addresses). On my laptop I am using Windows XP Pro with MS
> Outlook 2003. I managed to sync outlook from the laptop to the
> smartphone via a USB cable and ActiveSync. The data that I synced is:
> contacts, calendar, email, tasks, notes and files, so basically
> everything. This was successful and I now have an oulook email folder
> on my smartphone that contains everything that my laptop's outlook
> has.
>
> In outlook email on my smartphone when I select menu, send/receive is
> greyed out. So I assume I have to set up an email account to be able
> to receive email on my smartphone. I added this account with the exact
> same settings as in outlook on the laptop and named the account "my
> email". Now, besides the folders "messaging" and "outlook email" I
> also have the folder "my email". From this folder I can click send/
> receive and in comes my new mail.

The Outlook mail account has two purposes- originally it was for syncing
emails from a PC to PDAs without an internet connection- the thoery was
you'd sync your email to the device before you left the house/office, read
and compose replies while mobile, and sync again when you got back, and the
replies would sync to the PC's Outbox and be sent. That functionality is
still there as a sort of "legacy" scenario. These days the Outlook mail
account is primarily used for Exchange servers- if you enter server settings
into the device, you can send and receive mail on the road through the
server.


> Now the questions:
> Q1: When I now click send/receive on my laptop I will get the same
> mails, as if the mails were all kept on the server. Does this mean
> that my smartphone is by default set to keep everything on the server?
> I couldn't find any setting for this in my phone.

Yes- with POP email, the designers assumed that you'd archive your email on
your PC, so the mobile is designed NOT to delete them from the server since
your PC might not have retrieved them yet.

> On my laptop however
> I see that it is configured to NOT keep mails on the server. Does this
> mean that if I receive mails on my laptop, I will not anymore be able
> to receive them on my phone?

Correct. There are two solutions for this- preferably, switching from POP
to IMAP (if your email provider offers IMAP) would fix the problem, since
IMAP is designed for multiple computers/devices accessing the same account.
If you open an email on the computer, for example, it would be marked as
read when downloaded to your device. Deleting it on one would delete it
from the other, etc. The idea is that you wouldn't have to deal with the
same emails twice.

Assuming you can't use IMAP, you can set the laptop not to delete messages
from the server when received, but instead let them expire after x# of days.


> Q2: Why does my phone have 2 different folders for email? One "my
> email" folder with an inbox, outbox, trash etc and with the account
> settings I created, and one outlook email folder with also an inbox,
> outbox, trash, and all other folders that can only be synced with my
> laptop. Why can't they be merged?

Like I said above, it's a legacy function left over from the days when most
PDAs had no way to connect to the internet, and relied on the Activesync
connection to transfer emails to/from the device. The modern use scenario
is to use Pocket Outlook with Exchange, or to use an IMAP/POP account for
sending/receiving email to/from the device. In your case, you should
probably uncheck "email" in Activesync and not bother syncing email with the
desktop- just sync email with your email provider directly.

> Like in outlook on the laptop where
> I have one "personal folders" that contains everything and from where
> I can send + receive + organise/save emails in separate folders and
> even choose to send from one of both email addresses that I have (Send
> from xxx or send from yyy). If I now want to add my 2nd email address
> into my phone, I will have 3 different folders instead of one! What is
> the logic?

The logic is that you're trying to use a hammer to drive a screw! ;-) The
Outlook account isn't designed for what you're trying to accomplish. If you
want to check two (or more) email accounts on the road, you simply setup
each POP/IMAP account on the mobile and don't use the Outlook account.

> Q3: When I want to send an email with my phone, I've tried this via
> the "outlook email" folder as well as the "my email folder" but the
> message stays unsent in the outbox of my phone and after a minute or
> so I get the error message "The message(s) could not be sent. Check
> that you have network coverage and that your account information is
> correct. Then try sending again.". Did I do something wrong?

Probably not. Some ISPs assume email sent from "off network" is spam. They
reject SMTP sent from a "foreign" network like your cellular provider. The
solution is to check with your ISP and see if they have different SMTP
settings for use when off network (often they specify SSL or authentication
and an alternat port like 587 instead of 25) or check with your mobile
operator and see if they offer theri own SMTP server for their customers to
use, e.g. smtp.yourmobileprovider.com instead of smtp.yourISP.com.


> Q4: What if my laptop would crash and I want to put all mail folders,
> tasks, notes, files back to my laptop OR when my phone has failed and
> I want to restore the other way? I have tried this to test ActiveSync
> by first backing up my outlook.pst file on the laptop and then I
> deleted my contacts from the phone memory. Then I synced and to my
> amazement - even before I could check settings in activesync - as soon
> as I connected the usb cable it started synchronising immediately and
> all contacts on my laptop were deleted!! Thank god I always make
> backups! Can someone please explain the general philosophy that
> microsoft uses behind this activesync stuff? I've read lots of people
> complain that they lost all their data in this process so it does not
> seem very safe to me.

It's as safe as a chainsaw- perfectly safe if you know how to use it!
Syncing is a two-way street; the device and your PC are treated as equals,
one isn't subserviant to the other. Any changes made on one propagate to
the other. When you deleted all the contacts from your device then synced,
the Activesync dutifully propagated the changes to your contacts (in this
case, mass deletion!) to the PC, just like it would've propagated any
changes to phone numbers you made since the last sync, or added contacts you
entered on the device since the last sync.

Typically the deleted items would land in the Deleted Items folder in Outllo
on the PC, so even if you accidentally did something stupid, you can usually
recover. Having said that, I periodically backup my contacts and calendar
on my desktop to "backup" folders I created in Outlook. The mobile will
only sync with the "default" folders in Outlook, so the backup folders don't
sync and create duplicates on the device.


> I'm going to stop writing now or nobody is ever going to read all this
> but I still have a lot of question marks.

Keep 'em coming...



> Thanks in advance for your help.

Thanks a lot for all the answers, Todd. You've cleared up a lot of
issues already for me.

> > Q2: Why does my phone have 2 different folders for email? One "my
> > email" folder with an inbox, outbox, trash etc and with the account
> > settings I created, and one outlook email folder with also an inbox,
> > outbox, trash, and all other folders that can only be synced with my
> > laptop. Why can't they be merged?
>
> Like I said above, it's a legacy function left over from the days when most
> PDAs had no way to connect to the internet, and relied on the Activesync
> connection to transfer emails to/from the device. *The modern use scenario
> is to use Pocket Outlook with Exchange, or to use an IMAP/POP account for
> sending/receiving email to/from the device. *In your case, you should
> probably uncheck "email" in Activesync and not bother syncing email with the
> desktop- just sync email with your email provider directly.

I've unchecked email sync but now I cannot use my phone to read emails
that I saved (the entire outlook folder is empty). I've created
several folders in outlook on my laptop in which I save important
emails from work per category so that I can re-read them later if
necessary. I would like to be able to consult these saved emails from
my mobile phone too. So I guess I'll have to re-enable the email
checkbox in activesync and live with the fact that on my mobile device
I have one folder with the synced outlook folders, one account folder
for my email nr1, another folder for my second email address and a
folder "messaging" for sms messages?

> > Q3: When I want to send an email with my phone, I've tried this via
> > the "outlook email" folder as well as the "my email folder" but the
> > message stays unsent in the outbox of my phone and after a minute or
> > so I get the error message "The message(s) could not be sent. Check
> > that you have network coverage and that your account information is
> > correct. Then try sending again.". Did I do something wrong?
>
> Probably not. *Some ISPs assume email sent from "off network" is spam. *They
> reject SMTP sent from a "foreign" network like your cellular provider. *The
> solution is to check with your ISP and see if they have different SMTP
> settings for use when off network (often they specify SSL or authentication
> and an alternat port like 587 instead of 25) or check with your mobile
> operator and see if they offer theri own SMTP server for their customers to
> use, e.g. smtp.yourmobileprovider.com instead of smtp.yourISP.com.

Sounds quite technical to me and I haven't found any info on my ISP's
site (telenet.be) yet about this. I found this site but I'm not sure
it has something to do with what you said: http://clement.herssens.net/node/7

> I periodically backup my contacts and calendar
> on my desktop to "backup" folders I created in Outlook. *The mobile will
> only sync with the "default" folders in Outlook, so the backup folders don't
> sync and create duplicates on the device.

So inside ms outlook on your desktop you created a backup folder to
which you regularly copy/paste all other folders from your account but
you do not include this folder in the sync? What I do is I installed a
free program called syncback and I made a scheduled task with it that
copies "outlook.pst"onto another hard drive each time the computer
boots. I do this also for "my documents" folder and other important
data. Since these are incremental backups, it only copies over files
that are changed which takes only a second, especially when you do it
each time at boot. Maybe I brought you to an idea:)

"Delta007bhd" <Delta007bhd@telenet.be> wrote in message
news:62305262-64b8-4ed8-b26c-311e4a9029ab@b16g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
> Thanks a lot for all the answers, Todd. You've cleared up a lot of
> issues already for me.

Glad to be of service...


> > In your case, you should
> > probably uncheck "email" in Activesync and not bother syncing email with
> > the
> > desktop- just sync email with your email provider directly.
>
> I've unchecked email sync but now I cannot use my phone to read emails
> that I saved (the entire outlook folder is empty). I've created
> several folders in outlook on my laptop in which I save important
> emails from work per category so that I can re-read them later if
> necessary. I would like to be able to consult these saved emails from
> my mobile phone too. So I guess I'll have to re-enable the email
> checkbox in activesync and live with the fact that on my mobile device
> I have one folder with the synced outlook folders, one account folder
> for my email nr1, another folder for my second email address and a
> folder "messaging" for sms messages?

In that case, you probably should use the Outlook account as an archive of
saved mail.

Don't worry- you're allowed up to eight accounts in the messaging program-
you still have a few more slots to fill! ;-)

> > > Q3: When I want to send an email with my phone, I've tried this via
> > > the "outlook email" folder as well as the "my email folder" but the
> > > message stays unsent in the outbox of my phone and after a minute or
> > > so I get the error message "The message(s) could not be sent. Check
> > > that you have network coverage and that your account information is
> > > correct. Then try sending again.". Did I do something wrong?
> >
> > Probably not. Some ISPs assume email sent from "off network" is spam.
> > They
> > reject SMTP sent from a "foreign" network like your cellular provider.
> > The
> > solution is to check with your ISP and see if they have different SMTP
> > settings for use when off network (often they specify SSL or
> > authentication
> > and an alternat port like 587 instead of 25) or check with your mobile
> > operator and see if they offer theri own SMTP server for their customers
> > to
> > use, e.g. smtp.yourmobileprovider.com instead of smtp.yourISP.com.
>
> Sounds quite technical to me and I haven't found any info on my ISP's
> site (telenet.be) yet about this. I found this site but I'm not sure
> it has something to do with what you said:
> http://clement.herssens.net/node/7

That problem isn't what I'm referring to, but it might be the source of your
issue.

> > I periodically backup my contacts and calendar
> > on my desktop to "backup" folders I created in Outlook. The mobile will
> > only sync with the "default" folders in Outlook, so the backup folders
> > don't
> > sync and create duplicates on the device.
>
> So inside ms outlook on your desktop you created a backup folder to
> which you regularly copy/paste all other folders from your account but
> you do not include this folder in the sync?

You can't include any other folders other than the default folder when
syncing t a Windows Mobile device. It can only sync with one folder. Some
people use that to their advantage- say you had thousands of contacts in
Outllok, but only want to sync a few hundred to your phone- you could move
the ones you don't want to sync into a subfolder and they'd be "invisible"
to the phone.

> What I do is I installed a
> free program called syncback and I made a scheduled task with it that
> copies "outlook.pst"onto another hard drive each time the computer
> boots. I do this also for "my documents" folder and other important
> data. Since these are incremental backups, it only copies over files
> that are changed which takes only a second, especially when you do it
> each time at boot. Maybe I brought you to an idea:)

That's not a bad idea. I actually don't sync my devices directly with my
desktop any more. I use a program called Funambol from funambol.com on each
mobile and computer to sync my contacts and calendar on a free remote server
called ScheduleWorld.com. My phones and computers all sync with that server
periodically. (Sort of a "poor man's Exchange server.") I also use a
cloud-based backup service (Mozy.com) that incrementally backs up my
important files nightly for $5 US/month. That's just life insurance: my
wife would kill me if we lost our digital photos of the kids! In addition
to backing up my My Documents and My Pictures folders, I have it back up the
Outlook .pst files nightly as well.

I only make a temporary subfolder backup when I'm about to do something
stupid that might result in erasing or duplicating items, like syncing an
old PC or device that hasn't synced in a long time. I have four PCs and
three mobiles syncing the same information every few hours. If I do
something REALLY stupid without a backup, I can rebuild everything from any
device that hasn't synced since whatever stupid thing I did happened!

> In that case, you probably should use the Outlook account as an archive of
> saved mail.
>
> Don't worry- you're allowed up to eight accounts in the messaging program-
> you still have a few more slots to fill! *;-)

OK I think I'm getting the big picture here. Correct me if I'm wrong:
On the smartphone the outlook folder is NOT used for sending and
receiving mails but only for synchronising your folders and mail
between outlook on the laptop and your phone. If you want to send and
receive mails with you smartphone, you need to create another folder
with your account settings in it. Do this for each email address that
you have. For example, 5 email addresses would mean 5 folders (5
inboxes, 5 trash folders,5 outbox folders, 5 sent items folders and 5
draft folders) and one outlook folder which is an exact clone of the
"personal folders" on the laptop.

> You can't include any other folders other than the default folder when
> syncing to a Windows Mobile device. *It can only sync with one folder. *Some
> people use that to their advantage- say you had thousands of contacts in
> Outllok, but only want to sync a few hundred to your phone- you could move
> the ones you don't want to sync into a subfolder and they'd be "invisible"
> to the phone.

I'm not sure what you mean with the default folder. When I open
outlook on my laptop I can see in the left window "personal folders"
below which I have the default folders such as inbox, outbox, deleted
items, sent items, junk email, etc and also some folders I created
myself that contain subfolders as well. When I sync to the phone ALL
these folders (incl subfolders) are synced so not only the default
ones like you said.

Just tried to sync again via bluetooth and it worked again. It feels
great to have something work from the first time! I was getting tired
of all these issues, the last 2 weeks I've spent almost every
afternoon in forums and newsgroups trying to solve computer problems.
Incredible!

> In that case, you probably should use the Outlook account as an archive of
> saved mail.

> Don't worry- you're allowed up to eight accounts in the messaging program-
> you still have a few more slots to fill! ;-)

OK I think I'm getting the big picture here. Correct me if I'm wrong:
On the smartphone the outlook folder is NOT used for sending and
receiving mails but only for synchronising your folders and mail
between outlook on the laptop and your phone. If you want to send and
receive mails with you smartphone, you need to create another folder
with your account settings in it. Do this for each email address that
you have. For example, 5 email addresses would mean 5 folders (5
inboxes, 5 trash folders,5 outbox folders, 5 sent items folders and 5
draft folders) and one outlook folder which is an exact clone of the
"personal folders" on the laptop.

> You can't include any other folders other than the default folder when
> syncing to a Windows Mobile device. It can only sync with one folder. Some
> people use that to their advantage- say you had thousands of contacts in
> Outllok, but only want to sync a few hundred to your phone- you could move
> the ones you don't want to sync into a subfolder and they'd be "invisible"
> to the phone.

I'm not sure what you mean with the default folder. When I open
outlook on my laptop I can see in the left window "personal folders"
below which I have the default folders such as inbox, outbox, deleted
items, sent items, junk email, etc and also some folders I created
myself that contain subfolders as well. When I sync to the phone ALL
these folders (incl subfolders) are synced so not only the default
ones like you said.

At 09 Apr 2009 11:19:27 -0700 Delta007bhd wrote:

> > In that case, you probably should use the Outlook account as an
archive of
> > saved mail.
> >
> > Don't worry- you're allowed up to eight accounts in the messaging
program-
> > you still have a few more slots to fill! *;-)
>
> OK I think I'm getting the big picture here. Correct me if I'm wrong:
> On the smartphone the outlook folder is NOT used for sending and
> receiving mails but only for synchronising your folders and mail
> between outlook on the laptop and your phone. If you want to send and
> receive mails with you smartphone, you need to create another folder
> with your account settings in it. Do this for each email address that
> you have. For example, 5 email addresses would mean 5 folders (5
> inboxes, 5 trash folders,5 outbox folders, 5 sent items folders and 5
> draft folders) and one outlook folder which is an exact clone of the
> "personal folders" on the laptop.


Yes. (With the exception that the OutlookInbox can be used for corporate
email with an online Exchange Server instead of syncing with your desktop
inbox. When used with Exchange it can send and receive email when
mobile.)


> > You can't include any other folders other than the default folder when
> > syncing to a Windows Mobile device. *It can only sync with one
folder. *Some
> > people use that to their advantage- say you had thousands of contacts
in
> > Outllok, but only want to sync a few hundred to your phone- you could
move
> > the ones you don't want to sync into a subfolder and they'd be
"invisible"
> > to the phone.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean with the default folder. When I open
> outlook on my laptop I can see in the left window "personal folders"
> below which I have the default folders such as inbox, outbox, deleted
> items, sent items, junk email, etc and also some folders I created
> myself that contain subfolders as well. When I sync to the phone ALL
> these folders (incl subfolders) are synced so not only the default
> ones like you said.


Sorry, I meant contacts, calendar and tasks items. Email subfolders can
sync, after you select them with the "manage folders" function in the
Messaging app.

OK thanks a lot for all the help, you've helped me a lot;-)