PsiWin and Active Sync Compatability

[danielkmiller]

I left the Psion world regrettably a couple of years ago for an HP Jornada 720, largely because of pc syncronization problems (access database conversion difficulties; duplicate entries and erased ones in syncing to MS Outlook) and wireless issues. But I miss the size, keyboard comfort and ease of use of the 5mx (and Revo, too, for that matter). (The fact is that the 5mx fits a suitcoat pocket better than the Jornada!)

Here's the question: can I use both the 5mx and Jornada and sync them to the same Windows machine. I run Outlook 2000 with Office 2000 at work on a Win XP box and Outlook 2000 with Office 97 on a Win 98 box at home. Ideally, I'd like to sync the Jornada and 5mx to both machines, but would settle for syncing at work only if that is better.

Will I run into duplicate entries, or erased ones, using two different sync engines (PsiWin 2.3.3 and Active Sync)?

I'd like to play in both worlds.

Thank you in advance.

[PlutoPants]

On Win 98 I ran ActivSync v3.5 (I think I had to make sure I downloaded the latest version because the disk version I had was not reliable) and PsiWin 2.3.3 successfully with no problems.
My HP Journada 548 was connected via USB and the Psion 5MX/ MC218/ 3Cs via the COM serial port.
I ran Outlook 98 without inputting anything into it. I would sync with the Psion Agenda manually. ActivSync would sync automatically and reliably every time I cradled the Journada.
I did this on a daily basis until I simply decided to use ONE diary and keep backups on the EPOC emulator.
I never upgraded to Outlook 2k because of compatability issues with PsiWin. I do also understand from this forum that WinXP is more troublesome with PsiWin.
Funnily enough, I do seem to remember actually going back to using PsiWin 2.1 on one Win98 box and Outlook 97 due to various annoying little problems. But that was a while ago.
In short, with Win98/ Office97 it was perfectly possible fo me.
One thing I did end up doing when Synching the Psions, was to just sync manually and have separate jobs for Agenda and Contact synching. Also, I found that, despite being totally automatic with ActivSync and the Journada, PsiWin could not automatically read Outlook, even though I had only one default profile set in it. I always had to be there to press confirmation buttons. I just lived with it.
Good luck and let us know how you get on with your setup.
:cool:

[Jim Cooke]

Generally speaking, the combination of Windows XP and PsiWin 2.3.3 has been the most reliable and trouble free combination since I began using Psions in 1995.

ActiveSync and PsiWin can coexist, especially since AS uses a USB port and PsiWin the serial port. This, however, is a technical detail. Syncing both a WinCE and Psion machine to Outlook is another question. You will have problems with duplicates and changes to items from one platform to the other. Just as an example, WinCE and Psion use different methods for repeating events. The translation of these repeating items when synced will lead to some problems with either some repeats being deleted or some being duplicated. To-do's also tend to cause some problems due to the number of priorities available in Agenda and the lesser number available in Pocket Outlook. You will also have problems with contacts duplicating because of differences in how AS and PsiWin see a record as either changed or added.

Depending on how complicated your agenda is, these problems can either be just annoying or a major difficulty. I would urge you to at least upgrade to Outlook 2000 at home. There were some very significant bugs in Outlook 97 that will cause problems not only with PsiWin and AS but also in just the basic data transfers between these two version.

If you ever had a previous version of PsiWin running one either machines, you will also have to uninstall the previous version completely before installing PisWin 2.3.3. You must also use the registry cleaner you can get from Mike McConnell's web site at http://www.mgmcc.myby.co.uk/ since the normal Windows uninstall leaves some bits behind that will cause the new install to fail.

I'm giving you the most pessimistic picture of dual syncing so things may go better for you than I think. If you decide to give it a try, take complete backups of both Outlook files as well as your Journada and Psion before doing anything. This will make it a lot less frustrating when you have to deal with some of the inevitable problems you'll have.

[danielkmiller]

Thank you both for the excellent advice. Such wonderful detailed information. It makes me cautious about proceeding especially since I use a number of the problemmatic type of entries. But I'll post any luck I have if I do.

Thank you again!

Dan Miller