Questions about Windows Mobile with home and work Exchange, and other useabilty issue

swinster · #1 (**permalink**) 09-05-2009, 11:46 AM

Hi,

I got my first Windows mobile phone yesterday (HTC Touch Diamond 2) and have already some serious reservation about what the phone/software can do.

Firstly, I run a SBS 2003 server at home with Exchange. It took an age to finally connect the device to the server and sync my contacts. I use a Self Certificate on this box, and the device did not like that. I tried to browse to the page and accept the cert, and although I could do this it still would not sync. Eventually, after some internet rummaging I found a solution that meant I had to browse to the site from a PC, save the cert, copy it accross to the phone, then import it into the Root store! What a palaver, not made any easier by the fact that the cert originally was save via Firefox and the phone did not like that, then IE on Vista had to be run as an Administrator in order that I could save the cert to a file. Not something that the average user would be able to figure out!

So, I eventually sync my contacts etc although now I have a different issue. I have used PC Suite on other phones for years. I have kept my phone contact separate to my main contact list by using a separate folder. Whilst this creates duplicates, I kept a lot of contact I didn't want on my phone separate. I can see no way of syncing specific contact folders. Is there?

Then comes the issue of work email/contact. Ideally I wanted one device that I could use that I could contact to both my home and work Exchange servers and flick between accounts at will. It looks as though i can only set up 1 Exchange server in which to sync with. This is very poor as I see more and more people wishing to connect to more that one Exchange system. is there a way of doing this?

Other oddities are that I don't seem to be able to sort the contact list by first name, only by surname (which I often forget) and that I can't figure out how to auto lock the screen (it does switch off but can be reactivated by a single button press - I can see many pocket phone calls being made!

In addition, can the on screen keyboard be made bigger (I can't see the letters at all) - it would seem sensible to me to utilise the tall side of the screen if the phone was turned on its side. I would like to see all text be made bigger or a zoom feature everywhere - the inbuilt text size in the screen setting doesn't seem to do to much even when set to it largest.

If anyone can give my some insight here I would very much appreciate it.

Chris

windows · #2 (**permalink**) 09-05-2009, 03:03 PM

Wavey will probably be here in this thread later as he knows more about the workings of Exchange than I do. I agree about the one Exchange account being a problem, but that is the case with a lot of phones, certainly the iPhone has that same limitation as well. In fact I'm not aware of any phone that can handle two Exchange accounts fully (calendars, email, tasks, etc).

swinster · #3 (**permalink**) 09-05-2009, 05:34 PM

Cheers for this. Multiple Exchange accounts in Outlook is something I have been asking about since around 2000. Still, why would MS listen to me? Now that we are in an even more fluid business and home environment, I think that being able to connect to multiple Exchange servers from a single device is now almost a "no brainier", to coin the yanks.

WRT, the keyboard along the long side, I now see that in certain applications this does happen, however, the keyboard is still too small. I have had to revert to a phone style (9 button) touch pad. I found a setting in the Input setting options, that is something to do with the default zoom, but I can't see that this make any difference to anything. I was thinking of waiting for the HTP Touch Pro 2, but this would have been more expensive again.

It looks as though all contacts are listed by their "file as" field. I can't believe there is no other way to order your contacts. It would mean going through all my contacts and individually changing their "file as" field, which would be easier done on the PC although will still take some time. Ther must be a way to do this on the HTC?

Chris

neilm · #4 (**permalink**) 09-05-2009, 05:47 PM

Chris, there may some options to explore on both your points!

For a better keyboard you could look at TouchPal from CooTek.com. The core version is free and the enhanced version is relatively cheap. It uses it's own dictionary and after the initial learning curve is much more usable than the default keyboards.

With regard to the contacts sorting, there is a utility that allows you to change to First Name sort but I'm mobile at present and can't look it up!
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mgdorbit · #5 (**permalink**) 09-05-2009, 05:57 PM

I can recommend cootek. it's quiet versatile in terms of what you can do with just your finger. defiantly worth giving it a go.
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The Mailman · #6 (**permalink**) 09-05-2009, 07:11 PM

If the work exchange server is running Exchange 2007 then there is a possible solution wher you can ActiveSync your home mail and then use Imap4 for your work email.

A full explanation can be found here.

fowljr · #7 (**permalink**) 09-05-2009, 07:24 PM

I would love two Exchange Activesync accounts on my device, as I use my own Exchange Server at home and also at work, my preferred method is the other way around now, I use Exchange Sync for work, no option really as that is the only way, and I use IMAP for home...

I'd still prefer two Exchange accounts though!