Connect Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone Emulator to the Internet on Vista
The easiest way to connect Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone emulator to the Internet in Visual Studio 2005 on Windows Vista is to cradle the emulator, however the problem is… (with a step by step guide and images)
Here comes again. There was one of my old projects on Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone needed to be changed a little and re-released. I just re-installed my laptop couple weeks ago. Which means I have to install all the mobile SDKs and setup my development environment once again.
Finding and installing those SDKs is easy. The problem only comes when you trying to get internet working on your emulator. The method I was using before is to get NE2000 card working on the emulator. In order to do that, you will need a virtual network drive (or something) installed first on Windows Vista. And I found that my VPN always having troubles after I install it. That’s why I won’t recommend this method to anyone trying to set it up the first time.
So I figure as long as I can cradle Windows Smartphone 5.0 emulator, I should be able to access the Internet by using pass-through.
To cradle Windows Smartphone 5.0 emulator on Windows Vista. You will need:
- Install Windows Mobile Device Center (it really is Vista version of ActiveSync). Select DMA for Allow connections to one of the following
- Open Device Emulator Manager from Tools menu of Visual Studio 2005
- Open your emulator by selecting Windows mobile 5.0 Smartphone Emulator, right click and select Connect
- With the emulator selected still in Device Emulator Manager, right click and select Cradle
Image: Windows Mobile Device Center Settings
Image: Device Emulator Manager in Visual Studio 2005
If you see nothing happened to your Windows Mobile Device Center, it doesn’t mean you missed some steps from the above. It happened only because the Device Emulator 1.0 is the one comes with Visual Studio 2005 has this cradle problem on Windows Vista.
The solution is to download Microsoft Device Emulator 2.0 and by installing 2.0, it will replace the old one. Read this note from its download page: “DeviceEmulator 2.0 has taken a few design changes to work with the Windows Vista operating system that enables the emulator to be cradled using the Windows Mobile Device Center”.
This is the result after upgrading to Device Emulator 2.0 and cradling the emulator: Smartphone Emulator 5 Cradled
I would select “Connect without setting up your device” . The emulator should have Internet access now.
Windows smartphone emulator with Internet access
Links:
Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1
Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK for Smartphone
Thanks for this very useful information. It was really a help.
I did all this and nothing. Mobile DC doesn’t even blink when I cradle the emulator. Sometimes it works, but most of the time, he’s playing dumb. I’m REALLY pissed right now, and seriously thinking of going back to XP. And to think of that I was the biggest defender of Vista in my company. Deadlines are pushing me AND I CAN’T CRADLE THE F…. EMULATOR”!$#!”$
Anshul Verma, Thanks for your reply!
Hi, Domagoj
I also saw couple times that it just stopped working. I killed mobile device center processes and restart Visual Studio, it worked again.
I finally got this to work — I would click “cradle” and nothing would happen. I finally went back to the Control Panel for the nth time, clicked Windows Mobile Device Center, went to Windows Mobile Device Settings, then Connection Settings, and darned if the “Allow connections to one of the following” wasn’t set to Bluetooth. It *has* to be set to DMA. Once I did this, it worked. I hit “cradle” and it recogniced the emulator PocketPC. I spent practically all day getting the project set up so I could emulate a Motorola Q on Vista.
Thanks a lot. It helped me a lot.
I spent much time to find the solution for this problem, i thinked i cann’t solve this problem, i was hopeless, but, luckily, i found solution from you! i thanks you so much!
Glad I can help.
I’ve almost got this working, it seems to be cradled perfectly through Windows Mobile Device Center as it appears at My Computer as Pocket_PC, I have a logo on the emulator showing that the DMA connection is active yet whenever I try to connect to a webpage I get the error;
“The page cannot be displayed or downloaded because the connection was lost. Check the connection and try again.”
Hi Kai,
I too face the same error… “The page cannot be displayed or downloaded because the connection was lost. Check the connection and try again”
have you got that resolved.
- rahul
@Kai
@Rahul
Initiate a connetion from the device center first… that did help me to solve the problem.
-Geert
Gr8 emample, Thank you
Thanks, helped to solve my problem…
Thank a lot for the solution! u really helped me a lot! thank so much!
Gianluca
It’s still don’t work for me !!!! but I have a question if we choose any other Emulator (like PocketPC2003 should it work or not ??
l;,l;
thanks, very helpful
10x. Good article
Thanks a Lot … Great Article..
hi everyone.
i am using windows xp sp3 and VS 2008 . i am developing some mobile web pages. i used device emulator windows phone 5.0 to test those pages. but next day i saw an error “the page cannot be displayed or downloaded because the connection was lost.” . i have those settings which i did for the first time for active sync and device. but this time it is just agitating to me . plz any one help me.
thanks in advance…..
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