In another thread, I attempted to show my displeasure with ActiveSync since installing 4.0/4.1. I have several questions:

1.) Is it possible to roll-back/downgrade (without System Restore) to ActiveSync 3?

2.) ActiveSync 3.7 (on the Dell CD) installed just fine, with no issues. It even shows up in the tray, with the little icon. Hell, it even says 'connected' when you hover over the icon. However, double-clicking on the icon does nothing. I'm assuming that the .exe just crashes (the error logs were posted in my other thread).
Has anybody else had this problem? How was it remedied? I have installed/uninstalled in every combination under the moon, rebooting between each step, so that's definitely NOT the problem.
Manually launching CEAPPMGR.exe or WCESMGR.EXE have no effect (CEAPPMGR.exe shows for a split second, then closes; WCESMGR.exe is the program called when double-clicking the tray icon, it has no noticable effect).

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Important Update
wcesetup.log has some interesting entires. In particular,


Copying static files to C:\WINDOWS\system32\
CEUTIL.DLL - WARNING: not copied (old ver = 4.1.4807.0, source ver = 3.7.1.4034)
RAPI.DLL - WARNING: not copied (old ver = 4.1.4807.0, source ver = 3.7.1.4034)
MOBILEV.ACM - replaced
Copying static files to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\NoteSync Forms
FORMDLL.DLL - WARNING: not copied (old ver = 4.1.4807.0, source ver = 3.7.1.4034)
INKFORM.EXE - WARNING: not copied (old ver = 4.1.4807.0, source ver = 3.7.1.4034)
INKPROPS.DLL - WARNING: not copied (old ver = 4.1.4807.0, source ver = 3.7.1.4034)
INKX.DLL - WARNING: not copied (old ver = 4.1.4807.0, source ver = 3.7.1.4034)
VOICEBAR.DLL - WARNING: not copied (old ver = 4.1.4807.0, source ver = 3.7.1.4034)
VOICEFRM.EXE - WARNING: not copied (old ver = 4.1.4807.0, source ver = 3.7.1.4034)
VCOMCTL.DLL - WARNING: not copied (old ver = 4.1.4807.0, source ver = 3.7.1.4034)
Copying self-reg files to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\NoteSync Forms
VCOMCTL.DLL - WARNING: not copied (old ver = 4.1.4807.0, source ver = 3.7.1.4034)
...
Configuring communications
CTapi: TAPI lineInitialize error 0x80000048
WARNING: Could not configure communications - TAPI error

I'm going to uninstall ActiveSync, reboot, then reboot into safe mode and attempt to remove these files from my system. Hopefully that will have some effect.

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UPDATE 2!!!!

Boom-shaka-laka. For all of those who have installed ActiveSync 4, but are unable to go back (like me... from the looks of things, I think I may be an isolated incident), this is the path to freedome: Uninstall all forms of AS. Reboot into safe mode. Remove the following files/folders:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\CEUTIL.DLL
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RAPI.DLL
C:\WINDOWS\system32\MOBILEV.ACM
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\NoteSync Forms (the whole folder... or you can just rename it to "NoteSync Forms_bak" like I did).

( Mods forgive me for having two concurrent, related threads, but I feel that these are different enough to warrant different threads).

I am experiencing the same thing. Out here searching for a fix. I installed WM05 with ActiveSync 4.0 and after a few long hours I decided to roll both my PDA back to WM2003SE and I have tried to reinstall both ActiveSync 3.8 and then 3.7. Both are doing the same thing you described above.

Please help!!

Gotta do a hard reset

I tried hard resets more than once. Uninstall and reinstall of ActiveSync 3.7.1 and 3.8. Nothing worked... except one thing. I did a system restore back to before I installed ActiveSync 4.0 and voila!!! I am back to syncing again!!

Only if you're talking about WM5->WM2003SE. I never installed the WM5 upgrade, just ActiveSync (not gonna jump on the WM5 bandwagon just yet, but I wanted my CD.) I assumed ActiveSync to be stable enough. Nope.

Look at the instructions above, below the 2nd horizontal line. You must uninstall ActiveSync (whatever version you have), Reboot into Safe Mode, delete the three files and the specified folder. If you're unsure about outright deleting them, just rename them/move them elsewhere.

So I was having the same trouble with the rollback/downgrade. After finally getting the Axim back to 2003SE, I couldn't get Activesync 3.8 to open the window either. I tried your suggestions, booting into safe mode and deleting the selected files and voila; it worked!

Only problem; it killed my Microsoft Office 2003 installation. I had to perform the "repair" function from the Office 2003 cd. Just my .02.

This worked great, Thanks zachriggle !!!!!!

Sounds like hell...

  

@ SP1DEY
Sorry about your Office 2003 installation... I think that I must've had Office uninstalled when I removed the files. At least you didn't lose your data. Like I said, you can move\rename the files as an alternative to deleting them.

@ lawman
Which part? We have a working fix for 4.1->3.X downgrades now, so it was worth it (I say 4.1 because I did not have 4.0 installed at the time to test it). Figuring out the fix wasn't fun, though ;-).

Did the upgrade to WM05/AS4.0 from WM03/AS3.7.1. Finally, got my partnership going but lost it after reinstalling Franklin PlanPlus 2003. I decided to rollback after this problem and with other pre-WM2005 handheld software. I rolled back with the Dell exec for doing this, restored my PIM, uninstalled AS4.0, rebooted, reinstalled AS3.7.1, but only got the green dot from AS. I could right click on it and access the AS connections pop-up, but could not get the AS wizard to come up. I uninstalled 3.7.1, installed 3.8, rebooted, and had the same problem.

Then I renamed the three files in your thread, uninstalled AS3.8, rebooted, reinstalled AS3.8, and was able to go through the AS wizard. Now I can sync all my Outlook stuff again. Whew!

Life is better, but I cannot Explore my CF card or use Add/Remove programs in the AS pop-up. I am closer, but not fully back to where I was before.

I'm having the same problem with being able to explore my Axim, and my CF and SD cards. Did you try to replace the files that you took out now that you have your partnership reestablished? I'm going to try that tonight.

DrBones

When you reinstall AS, it will replace the files you took out/renamed. I didn't realize there was a fourth file (group) when I did this, that is, C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\NoteSync. I did not do anything with that before my reinstall of AS 3.8. Maybe that's why I can't add/delete programs from the pop-up box. I'll have to try later. If anyone does this successfully, I'd like to know. Have to wait til I get a chance back at work.

Post the contents of "C:\Program Files\Microsoft ActiveSync\wcesetup.log" if you are having trouble (opens with notepad, wordpad, etc.).

If you are having trouble (where X is the subversion). I'll help in any way that I can.

I had the problem too and removed those files, and it worked. However, I can not explorer my files. If i click on Explore nothing happens. same thing in the windows shell. Any ideas?

Did anyone ever find the fix for being able to use Explore in ActiveSync? There were three of us in this thread with the problem. When clicking on the Explore button on the menu bar in AS 3.8, there is no response. And using Windows Explore.exe when the PDA is docked only allows you to view the folders in the PDA memory and not in the memory card.