Mac Users: Sync to Windows in Virtual PC using Bluetooth

Microsoft recently released a support document entitled (What to do if) [y]ou cannot synchronize a Palm Tungsten C handheld device with a virtual machine in Virtual PC for Mac Version 7.^(*)

Although the article doesn’t make it clear the instructions are basically the same for any Bluetooth enabled Palm. For example, I used my Treo 650 for the following.

Basically it is an acknowledgement that you can’t sync a PDA to Virtual PC using USB. I have been told this does not work for any sort of virtual machine including Parallels Workstation for Mac OS X. Parallels tech support tells me this is due to a flaw in Mac OS X.

What does Microsoft recommend?

Well, actually, they don’t recommend the instructions they have posted:

We do not recommend this workaround but are providing this information so that you can implement this workaround at your own discretion. Use this workaround at your own risk.

Why don’t they recommend this workaround?

Because they are basically telling you to disable the Windows Firewall if you want to sync your Palm to Virtual PC. They give this additional warning:

We do not recommend this workaround but are providing this information so that you can implement this workaround at your own discretion. Use this workaround at your own risk.

Translation: Don’t blame us if something bad happens to your Windows installation after you’ve followed these instructions. We told you not to do it. It’s a basic CYB disclaimer.

The article then steps you through the process of enabling Bluetooth sync. Unfortunately step 5 is a little unclear. It reads:

Under Current Settings, click COM1 Port.

Here’s what the window looks like in my setup (note my Virtual Machine is called “Windows XP SP2” and yours may be different:

Personally I didn’t even notice the “Current Settings” way at the top of that window. But that’s what you want it to look like.

The instructions then tell you to go into HotSync Manager (in Windows) and set it to use COM1 as the Serial Port for Local Syncs.

Last but not least (!) disable the Windows Firewall.

Now to me this last step seems unnecessarily broad. Why does the entire firewall have to be disabled? Doesn’t HotSync use the same port number all the time? If it did, we could just make an exception to the Firewall rules. Apparently not. The folks at Microsoft have no reason to make Windows any less secure than necessary, and if you didn’t have to disable the firewall, I’m sure they wouldn’t have you do it.

I thought these instructions might help me on my quest to sync my Treo 650 to ACT. So I started XP SP2 and downloaded Palm Desktop for Windows.

All seemed to be going well until I received an error from Install Shield:

Rats. Now I remember why I gave up on this before. Still, the hope of Bluetooth Sync to Virtual PC was too big of a dangling carrot. I wasn’t going to give up that easily. After all, random error codes are why $DEITY invented Google, right?

So I plugged that error message into Google. But trying the various things it suggested left me no joy. However, I did finally stumble across the answer. Like many people, I have tried to squeeze as much performance as possible out of Windows running in Virtual PC^(*)... including disabling services! Well, for this to work you have to have the Windows Installer service running! (DUH!) So if you get that error, make sure you haven’t disabled Windows Installer!

Finally, Palm Desktop installed. Hooray! But what about getting it to sync? I went back to the Microsoft tech suport article and realized that it ends in a cliffhanger! No instructions on how to setup the Mac or Palm side!

I lifted my eyes heavenward and shook my fists at the Virtual Bill Gates (VBG?) I imagine up there looking over us all.

ARGH!!

At this point I nearly gave up, but I had been writing this up as I went along, and didn’t want to disappoint you, Loyal Reader, so I trudged on.

I made my way to the Google Group for Virtual PC on Mac and started plugging away. I finally found this post which explained what had to be done to get this to work (and the poster said that he found it somewhere else, but didn’t cite where).

1) Open HotSync on Palm

2) Goto the Menu (named “Options”) and choose “Connection Setup” (or /S for you shortcut fans)

3) Select the connection you use to connect to your Mac via Bluetooth (I am assuming that you have previously “paired” the two)

I called my connection “Virtual PC” so I know that’s the one I want to use when syncing via BT.

Tap the “Edit” button and choose :

• “Connect To: PC”
• Via Bluetooth
• Device: [this will change depending on the device name. My Powerbook is named “Grace”

It should look something like the image here:

4) Now we get to the important part!!! Or at least, one of them :-)

Tap the Details button and change the speed to 19,200 bps. Anything faster and HotSync will fail! (Ouch! That’s pretty painfully slow, but oh well!

Make sure that Flow Ctl (that is, Flow Control) is set to “Automatic” which is the default. It should look like this:

Then OK and Done buttons your way back to the HotSync screen.

5) Also on the Windows machine, goto Palm Desktop, choose “HotSync” menu and then “Setup” (or right click on the System Tray HotSync icon and choose “Setup”). Click the “Local” tab and set the speed to 19,200. It should look like this:

6) On the Mac, go to System Preferences → Bluetooth → and click on the “Sharing” tab. Select “Bluetooth-PDA-Sync” under “Service Name” and make sure that the “Type” is set to “RS-232” and not “Modem” which is the default. (Note: changing this setting will not interfere with your ability to use your Palm as a modem for the Mac using Bluetooth Dialup Networking). It should look like this:

WHEW! Still with me?!?!

We’re almost there!

OK, if so, then disable any HotSync app or MissingSync on your Mac (otherwise it will catch the sync process from VirtualPC). Actually if you are using MissingSync you can tell it to just not Sync via Bluetooth (see image to the right)

Once you have all that done, goto HotSync on your Palm, make sure you have the proper Connection selected, and press the sync button on the screen to initiate the HotSync between your Palm and Windows under Virtual PC.

Warning: the first sync will take a long, long time.

But it has worked flawlessly for me, with a few minor annoyances and remaining problems:

#1) Every time I sync to Windows in Virtual PC, I get this warning, and I can’t figure out how to make it stop.

2) Syncing is really, really, really slow. Mostly because there is no way to say “Sync, don’t backup” with the built-in HotSync application. I believe other programs like BackupBuddy will let you turn off the automatic backups (I backup daily to my Mac and my SD card, so disabling it for Windows would not be a big deal).

3) Virtual PC on my 1.5Ghz Powerbook G4 with 1GB of RAM is not at all speedy.

Was it good for you? I hope so. Being able to sync my Treo to Windows is going to be a huge help if it means I can continue to use ACT, the best PIM/Calendar/GTD tool I’ve seen on any platform.

Footnotes:

*) Microsoft has recently started to require “Windows Live” accounts [formerly Passport] to read support documents. BugMeNot may help if you do not already have an account. I consider this a very foolish thing for them to do, but they didn’t ask my opinion before implementing it. ↩

*) While we’re talking about performance tweaking, note that Microsoft recommends 256 MB of RAM for Virtual PC for Mac and 4mb of VRAM. This is apparently a situation where more is NOT always better. Go figure. ↩