Hi I am having a lot of difficulty in using the mobile device centre in W7. I am trying to sync a mobile device running Windows 6.1. As part of my testing I have done the following. 1. installed Windows 7 Enterprise on a new HP DC7700 box. Nothing else installed or configured. Connected the mobile device - worked perfectly. Drivers installed, mobile device centre loaded. Device connected. 2. Installed Windows 7 Enterprise on the same HP DC7700 box. Connected to our work domain. Added myself to local administrator group. Rebooted PC. Connected mobile device. Drivers did not install. Mobile device centre does not load. 3. Logged into #2 PC using local admin account (not domain account). Drivers didnot install. Mobile device centre does not load. Neither image has AV or any other programs installed. The only difference is workgroup v domain. I have spoken to our sys admin. Apart from password policy changes, there are no changes to group policy. We need these to work. Not only do most of the managers here use Windows 7 & smart phones, our custom built application also runs on Windows mobile devices. We need to be able to sync these so we can install our program. I am stuck. Any suggestions would be most welcome. Thanks Andrew

Hi, Can you write down the detail error message when Mobile Device Center does not load and the driver cannot be installed? At this stage, I suggest you perform a Clean Boot to check the result. Is the driver installed now? If not, please capture the error message and upload it for research. Thanks, Novak

We have a very similar problem. We develop software for HHTs and also build our own embedded devices. We recently moved to Windows 7 and cannot connect to any of our embedded devices (CE5 and CE6) using WMDC. When we plug the USB cable in we get a message saying the driver failed to install, contact the manufacturer. They just say that whenever they try it, it works for them. We’re currently resorting to creating XP VMs purely to continue embedded development. Unfortunately our customer’s can’t do the same to use them. Like you Andrew, we recently discovered that if we connected the devices to PCs before they were added to our domain, they connected perfectly. After many days of experiments and trawling the internet we know what’s causing the problem, but not how to fix it. Our problem is the Windows Mobile Device Centre installation has failed to complete on PCs that are part of our domain, and it has failed silently. The key to seeing this is the log entries it puts in “C:\Windows\inf\setupapi.dev.log”. When the install fails the following entries appear: dvi: {Install DEVICE} inf: Opened PNF: 'c:\windows\system32\driverstore\filerepository\wcebth.inf_amd64_neutral_92cde66e1cfb521e\wcebth.inf' ([strings]) dvi: Processing Registry/Property directives... inf: {Install Inf Section [WINMOBIL.NTAMD64]} inf: DelReg=WINMOBIL.DelReg (wcebth.inf line 46) inf: AddReg=WINMOBIL.AddReg (wcebth.inf line 45) !!! inf: Error setting registry value HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SvcHost\WindowsMobile !!! inf: Error 5: Access is denied. !!! inf: Error parsing section [WINMOBIL.NTAMD64], key=AddReg. !!! inf: Error 5: Access is denied. !!! inf: Error parsing section [WINMOBIL.NTAMD64] !!! inf: Error 5: Access is denied. inf: {Install Inf Section [WINMOBIL.NTAMD64] exit (0x00000005)} dvi: {Writing Device Properties} dvi: Provider name=Microsoft Corporation dvi: DriverDate 05/31/2007 dvi: DriverVersion=6.1.6965.0 dvi: Class name=Bluetooth dvi: Manufacturer=Microsoft Corporation dvi: Matching DeviceID=bthenum\{831c4071-7bc8-4a9c-a01c-15df25a4adbc} dvi: Strong Name=oem4.inf:WindowsCeDevices.NTamd64:WINMOBIL:6.1.6965.0:bthenum\{831c4071-7bc8-4a9c-a01c-15df25a4adbc} dvi: {Writing Device Properties - Complete} !!! dvi: Cleaning up failed installation !!! dvi: Error 5: Access is denied. dvi: {Install DEVICE exit (0x00000005)} !!! dvi: Cleaning up failed installation (00000005) !!! dvi: Class installer: failed(0x00000005)! !!! dvi: Error 5: Access is denied. dvi: CoInstaller 1: Enter (Post Processing) 11:22:02.003 ! dvi: CoInstaller 1: modified status 0x00000000! (Post Processing) ! dvi: Error 0: The operation completed successfully. dvi: {DIF_INSTALLDEVICE - exit(0x00000000)} 11:22:05.920 dvi: {DIF_NEWDEVICEWIZARD_FINISHINSTALL} 11:22:05.921 dvi: CoInstaller 1: Enter 11:22:05.922 dvi: CoInstaller 1: Exit dvi: Class installer: Enter 11:22:05.923 dvi: Class installer: Exit dvi: Default installer: Enter 11:22:05.925 dvi: Default installer: Exit dvi: {DIF_NEWDEVICEWIZARD_FINISHINSTALL - exit(0xe000020e)} 11:22:05.927 ndv: Device install status=0x00000000 ndv: Performing device install final cleanup... ! ndv: Queueing up error report since device has a PnP problem... ndv: {Core Device Install - exit(0x00000000)} 11:22:05.931 dvi: {DIF_DESTROYPRIVATEDATA} 11:22:05.931 dvi: CoInstaller 1: Enter 11:22:05.932 dvi: CoInstaller 1: Exit dvi: Class installer: Enter 11:22:05.932 dvi: Class installer: Exit dvi: Default installer: Enter 11:22:05.933 dvi: Default installer: Exit dvi: {DIF_DESTROYPRIVATEDATA - exit(0xe000020e)} 11:22:05.934 ump: Server install process exited with code 0x00000000 11:22:05.939 <<< Section end 2010/11/24 11:22:05.940 <<< [Exit status: SUCCESS] This marks the end of the installation, which has failed and which is also incomplete. Compare the above to the log created when the install succeeds to see what I mean. It turns out it's common practice for group policies to remove the "TrustedInstaller" user and to restrict access to the registry key the WMDC installer is trying to modify. To date we haven't been able to work out how to undo the changes made by the group policy to the extent that a WMDC installation will succeed. Our attempts include removing the PC from the restrictive policy group and creating a local administrator account on the PC. Any help on how to return a PC to a state which will allow a WMDC installation to succeed would be greatly appreciated. Obviously, as long as it's something you'd be happy for us to recommend our customers do too. Thanks Andrew

Did anyone solve this problem? I think I have the exact same problem with a Windows Server 2008. The RNDIS driver is loaded, but no portable device is present! Please help...

We are having the exact same issue here. intellident1, have you been able to solve this? It's been driving us crazy. Thanks in advance

Sorry, we've had no response from Microsoft to any of our posts. We're currently working with our HHT supplier so that they can pursue this, as it'll potentially affect all of their customers who supply or use devices in network environments when they upgrade to Windows 7. The only 'workaround' (if you could call it that) we've been able to work out is, if you install WMDC before adding a PC to the domain, it continues to work after the group policies have been applied. Pretty useless advice for our customers. Andrew