Develop Bugs

Messenger / Windows Live - Contacts sooo annoying!

Fellow xda people...
I'm a ms messenger addict, well I like it anyway and I've been looking forward to using it on my vario over uk T-mobile web'n'walk...I'm running black 2.5 so now I have the "windows live" thing on my today screen and I'm signed in...
thing is, seems to work...but i CANT STAND the way it insists on putting all my MSN contacts into my contact list! Does this annoy anyone else? Anyone found any clever work arounds?
Typical of microsoft trying to integrate an app and take over the whole machine - horrible?
cheers
bb

its so annoying...almost makes me want to use a different messenger client?

using black 2.0. cannot sign windows live from yesterday until now. it said no internet connectivity but i am connected with gprs and also wifi. can surf net also. it the mobile server different from the desktop?

I'm talking about the contacts in particular....

anyone else use messenger - windows live....polluting my contacts !

I had the same problem when I first used the live messenger beta a few months back. The final version does have the "sync contacts" optionality but as you say it still syncs them and creates duplicates and rubbish!
The only work around I found was to use outlook to copy and paste all the relevant info from the original contacts details into the new contacts created by messenger and then deleting the old one. This then avoids the duplication next time you flash and set up live.

unwired4 said:
The only work around I found was to use outlook to copy and paste all the relevant info from the original contacts details into the new contacts created by messenger and then deleting the old one. This then avoids the duplication next time you flash and set up live.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That seems to work the best for me, I don't have to many contact and it wasnt that hard for me to delete them all and put them back in again - when you do this it asks what sort of contact you want - I think MS should have included a wizard that goes through your contacts when you first install them asking if you want Outlook, Contacts List and/or Messenger for each contact.
Another problem I found was everytime it synced from phone to computer, it would change my Messenger contacts, I found that if you edit the contact in Windows Messenger and make sure the name info is the same as what is one the phone has stored, it solves this problem, my contacts sync OK now.

I have the same issue, so i just reverted to using Pocket MSN...

Someone posted a workaround in the following thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=1236933&postcount=22
Don't know if it's working since I didn't have time to install Live Messenger and try it out. Can someone try it?

My Workaround ...
Yeah,
I had the exact same problem. And i have HEAPS of contacts both messenger and outlook ... and of course ... i'm ridiculously anal about having everything exactly perfect ... so i fixed my contacts and reinstalled my phone ... hah
What i found worked for me, was before syncing the first time, make sure that you have outlook contacts corresponding to the email addresses of your messenger contacts. (ie: if windows live messenger sees you have an outlook contact with the same email address, it will just attach the msn display pic etc to that contact.
- Phixx

cheers for this...infuriating !
I have now taken the route one approach...deleted all the daft MS Messenger contacts and removed Windows Live from my today screen (I would delete it if I could)....Hope I never see it again!

The best way to deal with it is to make sure all of your contacts in MS Live have contact entries in Outlook. It sucks, but once you have all of your contacts sync'd up, it's pretty cool: you can see people's online status anywhere you see their contact info on the phone.

BTW; no matter what route you take, you MUST back up your Live contacts and your Outlook contacts on your PC. Seriously. Do it now. I made the mistake of not doing that, and during one of my many reloads, I somehow managed to wipe out my entire Outlook contacts list *and* my Windows Live contact list. It was not a fun day restoring that.
Go to Contacts->Save instant messenging contacts in Windows Live on your PC.

yeah, but i don't want my instant messenger stuff anywhere near my contacts...to me it's a separate app! (or it should be) MS trying to be too clever by half.

What would be nice is if it put the messenger emails in contacts under "emails" Ie personal / business and email catogries.
It really is quite annoying when sifting through the contact list to find a phone number and having to sift through 100's of mail addresses too.
Of course I do try to use the smart dialing but they still come up.
Just having to do these work arounds every reinstall / HR e.t.c is tedious at best.

LeoBadhan said:
I have the same issue, so i just reverted to using Pocket MSN...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I want to do the same thing, only I can't find the install for pocket MSN, the only one I could find was on the MS site where you have to pay for it.. it came with my TyTN so I don't want to pay MS another €15 for it!
Can you please provide me the install file? whether it is in PM or in the thread
Thanks alot man

I quite like the way it works.. It's a little bit annoying if you have contacts who have really messed up their details online so that it can't link them to a phone contact, but other than that I really like it.
It would be nice if there was an advanced sync option where you could somehow pair orphan people on MSN to people in contacts on the phone so that it was aware they were the same person.. but I'm not gonna complain too much.

or just give you an option to turn it off.

I'm having an absolute nightmare with this!
I really like the idea in concept and want it to work.
I deleted the contacts it added to my phone adress book cos it looked messy not realising that when I sync'd with my PC it would delete them all (85) from messenger!
So I started re adding my msn contacts being careful to also have a corresponding Outlook contact and all was going well. I was getting them linked up nicely. Now all of a sudden, they've all gone again from my MSN on my PC!
I want this feature to work, I don't simply want to turn it off as some of you have done. How should I go about this?

Yes, me too.. There are nice features in Live messenger for WM, like showing display picture, voiceclip, sending files, pictures, etc, but this contacts problem is so darn annoying! I wish some wizzguy could look into a hack or solution
Greetz.

Birthday reminders in the calendar

I must say that I love my Desire (have had it for about a week), except for some small kinks and I'm not the big fan of the HTC Sense lock-screen (I don't like the vertical "handle", I would much prefer the default Android one.. [any tips to get it is welcome]).
But there is one thing that annoys me, and I don't understand why they didn't implement. And that is birthday "reminders" in the calendar..
I like the HTC Calendar and I "love" the integration between Google Contacts (& Calendar), the phone and Facebook... For me (as a developer) it couldn't be much more work to integrate that into that calendar as well (the data is already there, you just have to show it [more or less..]).
Anybody know if there's a way to "fix" this (a setting I've missed) or a better calendar app that can handle this?
I know that you can include birthday info in your Google Calender from your Google contacts, but that's not "good enough". For one thing, I don't have all my friends (that I have on Facebook) in my Google Contacts and I have no intention to add them to it (or go through them and add their birthdays..)
I'm glad for any input..
All the best to you..
/Chris
(I used "Google [Service]" to be clear on what I was talking about)

I have the same problem. How do i make my device remimd me of my contacts b-day?
thanl you
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

You have to do it via Google.
First you have to sync your contacts with your Google contacts. The birthday and anniversary details will be carried up to your Google contacts from your phone.
Then switch to your Google calendar. On the left hand side in the Other calendars section, click "Add", select "Browse Interesting Calendars" and click the "More" tab. From the displayed list click the "subscribe" link against "Contacts' birthdays and events."
This adds your contacts' birthdays to your Google Calendar, which when sync'd with your phone will appear on you phone's calendar.
I admit this is not straightforward and I would have liked to have seen the phone do this by itself.

And what can we do with the contacts stored on the phone and no as a gmail contact?
Thanks!

meson1 said:
You have to do it via Google.
First you have to sync your contacts with your Google contacts. The birthday and anniversary details will be carried up to your Google contacts from your phone.
Then switch to your Google calendar. On the left hand side in the Other calendars section, click "Add", select "Browse Interesting Calendars" and click the "More" tab. From the displayed list click the "subscribe" link against "Contacts' birthdays and events."
This adds your contacts' birthdays to your Google Calendar, which when sync'd with your phone will appear on you phone's calendar.
I admit this is not straightforward and I would have liked to have seen the phone do this by itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wonder if someone could help me with this. I had this all setup and it showed my birthdays fine.
Then I added a couple more birthdays to contacts and they didnt show even after syncing rebooting an taking off the calendar and putting it back on.
Now I cannot at all get the calendar to show ANY birthdays. Ive got it all set up right, and i;ve syncd. They show on the google calendar on the laptop here, it shows all tasks and birthdays, however the calendar on the phone doesnt show anything other than uk holidays. Ive messed with every setting possible...HELP!

Julian1984 said:
And what can we do with the contacts stored on the phone and not as a gmail contact?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On your phone you have three types of contacts: SIM contacts, Phone contacts and Google. Obviously, SIM contacts reside on your SIM card; Phone contacts in the phone and Google contacts on Google Mail.
As you have pointed out only Google contacts will synchronize with your Google Mail account. But all is not lost. You won't have to type in all your contact details again because you can link contacts together in the phone.
What you do is to create Google contacts that duplicate each of your phone contacts. Just create each Google contact on your phone with the same name as each existing phone contact. You do not need to include any details, just create them as empty contacts. Once you've done this, they will appear as two separate contacts in the contact list.
Now the magic. For each person, edit either one of their two contacts. You will see that you can link each contact with another contact. If you've used the same name for your Phone and Google contacts it will already be suggesting that these two can be linked together. So link them.
Now you will find your two linked contacts now appear as one in your contact list. And these linked contacts will now synchronize with your Google Mail account contacts and carry all the details from your original Phone contact with them.
Hope this helps.

eboBirthday from the Marketplace. Free.

kevano22 said:
Then I added a couple more birthdays to contacts and they didnt show even after syncing rebooting an taking off the calendar and putting it back on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had this too. Only birthdays that were assigned to contacts at the time I created the calendar online show now.
I'm going to try and delete that calendar and re-create it but something is definitely wrong when you subsequently add birthdays after making that calendar.

Right, one thing I've found is that the birthdays I've added on the phone have NOT made their way back into Google's cloud. I've re-entered them in GMail online and re-created the calendar to show birthdays but they still aren't showing, not online and not in my phone!

Right, just re-added the calendar again online and it's now showing in the web calendar. After a refresh of the calendar on the phone, it's now showing there too.
So numerous bugs. If you want to see your birthdays, the process seems to be:
1) Enter them all online in your Gmail contacts
2) Delete then recreate your "friends birthdays" calendar in Google Calendar online
3) Refresh your phone
If you add any new birthdays, you'll need to do this all again. Pretty poor

tifosi256 said:
Right, just re-added the calendar again online and it's now showing in the web calendar. After a refresh of the calendar on the phone, it's now showing there too.
So numerous bugs. If you want to see your birthdays, the process seems to be:
1) Enter them all online in your Gmail contacts
2) Delete then recreate your "friends birthdays" calendar in Google Calendar online
3) Refresh your phone
If you add any new birthdays, you'll need to do this all again. Pretty poor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sounds like a horror story - here was i thinking that someone would have written an app to read birthdays from built-in phone contacts ... :-(

mrdo said:
sounds like a horror story - here was i thinking that someone would have written an app to read birthdays from built-in phone contacts ... :-(
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it's certainly sub-optimal. I'd say the main bug is the phone not sending birthdays entered on it back to Google. The non-refreshing calendar thing I can kind of understand. I guess the additional calendars are assumed to be static (like UK Public holidays etc). Just a guess. I'd heard about the birthday syncing bug on another android phone, kinda hoped it would be sorted on the Desire.

tifosi256 said:
Well, it's certainly sub-optimal. I'd say the main bug is the phone not sending birthdays entered on it back to Google. The non-refreshing calendar thing I can kind of understand. I guess the additional calendars are assumed to be static (like UK Public holidays etc). Just a guess. I'd heard about the birthday syncing bug on another android phone, kinda hoped it would be sorted on the Desire.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks tif I will try it later. Got that birthday program and its cool but I'd like to see them in my calendar too!

tifosi256 said:
Well, it's certainly sub-optimal. I'd say the main bug is the phone not sending birthdays entered on it back to Google. The non-refreshing calendar thing I can kind of understand. I guess the additional calendars are assumed to be static (like UK Public holidays etc). Just a guess. I'd heard about the birthday syncing bug on another android phone, kinda hoped it would be sorted on the Desire.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me it takes about 12-18 hour until birthdays are synched with my calendar, but only when i refresh the calendar manually (menu -> more -> refresh)
Try to add a birthday @ google contacts, wait 24 hours, refresh the calendar.
The only way it works for me.
When i add a birthday to a contact (when creating the contact), the contact disappers lol.

@meson1: I thank you for your post, and I guess it could be helpsome for someone but as I said in the original post. I know that you can do that, bit I don't want that.. Don't want to go through and manually add a hundred people to my Google contacts.. First there are already too many posts in there, second: too much work for too litle result and för something that more or less should be given..
I will check out that app. But I'm still looking för a good solution to this problem.. (anybody know if there's än API för the calendar?)
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

ChaosOfChris said:
@meson1: I thank you for your post, and I guess it could be helpsome for someone but as I said in the original post. I know that you can do that, bit I don't want that.. Don't want to go through and manually add a hundred people to my Google contacts.. First there are already too many posts in there, second: too much work for too litle result and för something that more or less should be given.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm afraid I don't know a way to do this for all your contacts enmasse. My experience with this stuff is limited. I looked into all this shortly after I got my Desire not having had any experience of Google Mail or Android before. After some experimentation that is what I have found.
I do agree that this part of the functionality is extremely lacking and it seems from other peoples' posts that it is also extremely buggy too. I do not like having to go via Google to do this stuff. I think this stuff should be integrated into the phone by itself and then linking to Google and anything else should be an extra.
It's all the more annoying that it's an obvious function to include, but that no-one has connected the dots. Or at least connected them in a technically competant fashion.
If I knew how, I'd knock up a really simple app to let you sync birthdays and anniversaries in the contacts to the calendar. As it is I'm still trying to wrap my head around the Android SDK and Java let alone doing anything practical.
Perhaps there's someone out there that is further up the Android Development learning curve that can put something together.

If I had the time (and not already too many projects to work with) I could perhaps put something together (If I knew there was some nice APIs)...
But I tried eboBirthday and it works ok.. (Far from ultimate and I can't even call it "good"..). First it downloaded all the birthdays from Facebook (and displays it in a extremely plain interface). But I can't say that it went smooth.. It was a bit "buggy" and I got an error at the end (even if it seemed to have downloaded all the info fine).
Then by using eboBirthday Contact Sync (also free in the market) that match my Google Contacts with my Facebook contacts and updated them..
And when I looked at my Google Calendar, the info was already there (no need to remove the Contacts birthdays calendar etc).
And then I just synced my calendar in the phone and now, at least, got all the birthdays for my Google Contacts in my calendar (plus reminders from eboBirthday).

Exchange 2010 = no calendar sync

I've had my 2 Desires for about 3 weeks now. When I first received them we were using MS Exchange 2003, and Mail/Contacts/Calendar all synced perfectly.
Since then, we have upgraded our Exchange Server to Exchange 2010, which is lovely, BUT it turns out that the Desire Calendar will not sync with Exchange 2010. It would seem to be a Desire/HTC issue, as our iPhones/iPod Touches still sync Calendar fine with Exchange 2010.
I also note that a colleague is syncing the Desire Calendar with Exchange 2007 without problems.
So it is the combination of Desire Calendar and Exchange 2010 which fails. If I go to Settings/Accounts & Sync/Exchange Activesync and enable Calendar Sync I can see error messages saying "Syncronization is experiencing problems". If I leave Calenday sync enabled, it causes Mail and Contacts to sync poorly too, but if I disable Calendar sync, Mail and Contacts sync fine.
Has anyone else got Calendar sync working with Exchange 2010?

Desire Exchange 2010 Calendar
I recieved my Desire yesterday after reading quite a bit about it. Yes it can Sync with Exchange and all is what i read.
I set it up to Sync with the Exchange 2010 server and to my surprise it didn't sync the existing calendar items. Contacts and Mail is no problem.
If i add e new Calendar item on the Desire it does show in Outlook on my pc so Exchange does have a sort of sync with the Calendar. Adding a new item in Outlook never shows on the Desire. It seems like a one way sync or something. The Desire can sync to Exchange but it seems Exchange cannot sync to the Desire
I have a test account on one of our clients Managed Exchange 2007 servers. Setting up ActiveSync to the Exchange 2007 server works like a charm. Full sync both ways.

Just modify all your calendar items, for example by adding an additonal category by change your view to "list" or "list all active" and selecting all your appointments. Add a category, remove the category and switch back your view. Now you can happy sync your calendar with E2k10

Whoa! Steady there.
Can you give me some background to this before I apply it to my 12 year calendar history? How did you discover this, and have you actually successfully done this?

It worked and now not anymore
Strangest thing. My girlfriend planned a few appointments in here Calendar and invited me. So I accepted those invites on my Desire and all of a sudden the 2way sync worked. I could add items on my Desire and they popped up in the Exchange/Outlook Calendar and vice versa.
But that was unitil I rooted my device this morning...meaning new flash and standard factory reset. Now it will not sync the Calendar anymore. Tried sending new invites from a different account without any luck.
So...the calendar sync does work eventually...dont know why or how I did it.
Other thing you could do is, is install HTC Sync and manually do an Outlook sync of only the Calendar items (all items). I did this and they all showed up on my Desire. I did a one time sync.
Trying to figure out how to get the sync working again.

XDAgeek said:
Whoa! Steady there.
Can you give me some background to this before I apply it to my 12 year calendar history? How did you discover this, and have you actually successfully done this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really any background information, sorry. I've done some research on it but did not find anything, including analysing the extended sync protocols, everything looks ok, but there's no sync.
I've got this solution from a swiss-forum "android.pocketpc.ch" (sorry I can't post links since no moderator removed the restrictions yet) and it worked like a charm. I've tried it since I'm the Exchange-Admin myself and I now I've a functional backup;-)

Same problem here. Cannot get calendar to Sync with Exchange 2010.
If I add a new meeting to the Desire it appears in Outlook.
If I modify this meeting in Outlook then it appears as 2 separate meetings on the Desire.
If I delete an appointment on the Desire then it comes back once the sync runs.
All in all very disappointing for a State of the art phone.
Anyone got a real fix for the Exchange 2010 calendar problem?

A huge thanks to dab_ch for posting above the workaround to get the Calendar syncing to Exchange 2010. This is now working perfect to two Desires here.
If you have this problem, follow the advice in the post above. It worked for me, twice.

dab_ch fix is only working in part for me.
Some of the Exchange calendar items still do not appear on the Phone.
If I modify an appointment on Exchange the change is not reflected on the next sync from Exchange
Also, While Exchange Contacts are appearing on the phone. If I add a new contact to the Phone this does not appear in exchange.
The Sync Process still reports "Synchronization is experiencing problems."

A Further update.
I setup a new account on Exchange2010 and then transferred the Calendar using export and import.
Now my Calendar Synch in both directions is working fine.
It looks like my problem was related to a problem with my account on Exchange or some appointment in it.

Contact Sync problems
While the calendar is working 100%.
I still have a problem, that if I create a contact on the phone it does not sync to Exchange 2010.
There are no errors from the ActiveSync process.
Is anybody else having this issue?

Please note that if your Desktop Outlook client is using 'Cached Mailbox', then after adding the temporary category to each item, you MUST wait for the local Outlook database to sync completely back to the Exchange before you then remove the temporary category and then again wait for the completion of the sync back to exchange from Outlook.
Failure to comply with this will leave you with only a partially synced database - the part which did manage to sync back to Exchange.
You can tell when it is still syncing by watching the satus bar at the bottom of Outlook - it will say 'Updating Calendar', then after a few minutes return to 'All folders are up to date'.
Note the sync doesnt start immediately, so you wil see the 'All folders are up to date' message for perhaps 15 seconds before the sync starts. Wait for the 'Updating...' message etc.
Contact sync does seem slow, but it does work here eventually. It ought to be fast tho, so something is not right. I even tried the temporary category trick, but it didnt speed it up.

XDAgeek you are right.
I tried a number of different accounts to reproduce the problem with the Calendar and it seems Cache mode was my issue.
The Calendar sync is now working 100%.
On the Contact Sync from Phone issue, this still seems to be not working. I added a contact to one of my test Desire phones two days ago and it is still not in exchange.

For me it was not the cache mode.
I did an export-mailbox on the Exchange 2010 server.
Deleted my mailbox...recreated it so it was blank....no synch issue of course (So it is definitely not an Exchange 2010 issue)
I created 1 item in the Calendar in Outlook 2007 and that popped up nicely on the Desire. Great...so I thought.
Did an import-mailbox with the backed up pst...and Sync had problems again.
Started filtering out where the problem came from.
Turns out I had some Items (birthdays and such) with recurrence that the ActiveSync in Android is not happy about (Same Items sync fine with a WinMo 6.1 device). So I deleted all the recurrence itmes and copying them back 1 by 1. Syncing was still going fine until a certain item. So I edited that item by removing the recurrence pattern and reapplying it making sure it was an All Day event (that is a Birthday usually ). And Presto...everthing is syncing fine now.

Better logging is needed?

Has anyone else got Calendar sync working with Exchange 2010?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine is working fine syncing calendar with Exchange 2010, has been since i got my desire back in March.
Very strange that so many people are having the same issue.

after a few beers
sorry this post is under the influence but...
there is a subtle problem with my synching. overall the calender syncs fine. with one exception: any diary entry i type directly into outlook, (with receipients also), does not synch. if i am sent and then accept an entry, or if i make the entry on my phone it syncs. direct outlook entry does not work. pants.

tuntang said:
sorry this post is under the influence but...
there is a subtle problem with my synching. overall the calender syncs fine. with one exception: any diary entry i type directly into outlook, (with receipients also), does not synch. if i am sent and then accept an entry, or if i make the entry on my phone it syncs. direct outlook entry does not work. pants.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have exactly the same problem. If a collegue invites me, my calendar syncs fine, but if I add items myself, the sync is almost random (some items dissappear) and the new item does not show/sync.
I really do not want to delete all recurring items, but maybe i'll give it a try. Google Calendar Sync does not seem to be a great solution either.
HTC answered me (i have a Legend) that Exchange 2010 is currently NOT supported.

Thanks all, I follow the "category" method and it works like charm now!!! )))

Category.. No category... SYNC!
Thanks!
Also for me the assign category then undo worked.
Now my whole calendar is synced and I'm ready to go!

Calendar Sync Issue

My Desire seems to want me to really celebrate my friends birthdays!
I am syncing my contacts and calendar items from my PC. This includes all my contacts birthdays. I am using Outlook (2007) but no Exchange.
In many cases, I have between 5 and 10 duplicated birthday items in the calendar for the same person. However, when I look on the PC, there is only 1.
Looking on the phone under Calendar>Menu>Settings>More>Calendars, there are 3 calendars listed - My Calendar (no idea what that is?), one called my name (which appears to contain the items I have added on the phone) and PC Sync. The PC Sync is the one which generates the multiple entries, because if I untick this, all the multiple entries disappear.
I suspect the problem is to do with a combination of syncing and multiple calendars (although to my knowledge I only have one calendar on the PC).
Debating just removing the lot and starting again! Not ideal!
Any thoughts on how to rectify this problem?

Noone else?
I take it noone else is seeing this problem?
If I scrap syncing to Outlook Calendar, does Desire <-> Google Calendar work ok?

PeteW said:
I take it noone else is seeing this problem?
If I scrap syncing to Outlook Calendar, does Desire <-> Google Calendar work ok?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have exchange at all but have found the google calender to be excellent so far. If you want more specific options for an event, you get more on the web page than in the android options. However, it's synced fine and works very well so far for me.
I'm sure that it's a simple options issue being the reason you're getting loads of birthday entries but I don't know how to help on that.
What I do like about the google calender is that I can select which calenders I want to show on my phone and which I don't. Also I have a little call tracker app that posts all my calls and missed calls in a separate calender online... works great.

what's that tracker app called? Sounds useful - in app store?

Mark One: I use CallTrak, pretty good ...
and you might also want "SMS Backup", the same for SMS ...

Thanks - looks great. Dumb question (android noob) - how do you set it up to sync with another calendar. I have created a new calendar on the same google account but it doesn't show up as an option in CallTrak - I can only see my main calendar or UK Holidays.
Thanks, M1

No worries - I didn't leave enough time (like half an hour!) for the new Gmail calendar I created to sync with the phone.
Now working as it should. Thanks.

Outlook Sync - Contacts "Files As"

Hey guys,
My MD now has a Desire and I notice something strange happening when he syncs his outlook contacts.
Now I know from both sides (outlook, Android) , it doesn't really matter what you file someone's name as because when you search, it still appears either way. However, he is very particular so here is my problem.
When he syncs his outlook contacts to the device, on outlook they now appear as first name, last name. Even though they are set to File As Lastname, Firstname. Now if I open a contact in Outlook, flip the File As back from and to what it was, it then appears in outlook correctly (well how he wants it to).
However, next sync it will re appear as first, last... although file as is still last, first (Outlook)
Anyone have any ideas or noticed something similar?
I appreciate this is a minor issue but I would like to resolve it for him if possible.
Thanks for reading and any help appreciated.

Tell your MD to stop being so picky!!! LOL!!!
Seriously, though, I don't know - I stopped using Outlook sync and sync to my Gmail account now

EddyOS said:
Tell your MD to stop being so picky!!! LOL!!!
Seriously, though, I don't know - I stopped using Outlook sync and sync to my Gmail account now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hehe I sooo wish I could do this. Im with you on that one too, I sync everything to google, life is easy. But he's very set in his ways lol... whats that saying? You cant teach an old dog new tricks

i had this issue as well, it took days to sort out and once I had them all as I needed it I just installed gsyncit and uninstalled HTC Sync. Outlook and phone perfectly in sync wirelessly for £9 !

i'm thinking about getting a desire, currently have htc touch 3g wm and have it sync'd to my company exchange server . whats the best way to recreate the same push email & sync functionality on the desire? Would Gsyncit do the job? thanks in advance

ukmapleleaf said:
i'm thinking about getting a desire, currently have htc touch 3g wm and have it sync'd to my company exchange server . whats the best way to recreate the same push email & sync functionality on the desire? Would Gsyncit do the job? thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no need, it will sync to exchange without anything other than your exchange details. No other software needed

cardiak said:
Hey guys,
My MD now has a Desire and I notice something strange happening when he syncs his outlook contacts.
Now I know from both sides (outlook, Android) , it doesn't really matter what you file someone's name as because when you search, it still appears either way. However, he is very particular so here is my problem.
When he syncs his outlook contacts to the device, on outlook they now appear as first name, last name. Even though they are set to File As Lastname, Firstname. Now if I open a contact in Outlook, flip the File As back from and to what it was, it then appears in outlook correctly (well how he wants it to).
However, next sync it will re appear as first, last... although file as is still last, first (Outlook)
Anyone have any ideas or noticed something similar?
I appreciate this is a minor issue but I would like to resolve it for him if possible.
Thanks for reading and any help appreciated.
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This is what I used:
xxx.slipstick.com/contacts/fileas.asp (change xxx to www)
and it worked perfectly.
I found after I got fed up of change 500 contacts individually (twice)

Thanks for that Redskinblack, looks like it'll be a great work around for us. Anyone have any info as to weather or not HTC are ever likely to fix this though?

outlook sync with htc sync then tried to sync back after wiping the contacts on my phone sent all my contacts screwy, added them to wrong groups, linked them to wrong facebook contacts...
I've found exporting to sd and importing again much easier and works much nicer - lose my groups but that's not as annoying as re-linking them all...
obviously doesnt help the outlook issue though

If it helps, I've been trying to find a reliable method to sync Outlook 2010 contacts with the Desire. I had similar issues with HTC Sync reversing first and last names as well as problems syncing.
Having looked at Gsyncit but not wanting to pay for it, I found MyPhoneExplorer which was originally developed for SE phones but has been updated to include Android. It works well and syncs over wifi. You install the program on your PC and the app from the Market. In the program, you then select Outlook as the source of your contacts.
In order to avoid duplicated contacts, I deleted all phone contacts prior to syncing and it copied all the Outlook contacts to my Desire. The only issue was that the Facebook contact link to the phone contacts was broken. This was resolved by removing the account from HTC Facebook for Sense, logging in again and linking a contact.
Hope this helps someone.

crazybones said:
If it helps, I've been trying to find a reliable method to sync Outlook 2010 contacts with the Desire. I had similar issues with HTC Sync reversing first and last names as well as problems syncing.
Having looked at Gsyncit but not wanting to pay for it, I found MyPhoneExplorer which was originally developed for SE phones but has been updated to include Android. It works well and syncs over wifi. You install the program on your PC and the app from the Market. In the program, you then select Outlook as the source of your contacts.
In order to avoid duplicated contacts, I deleted all phone contacts prior to syncing and it copied all the Outlook contacts to my Desire. The only issue was that the Facebook contact link to the phone contacts was broken. This was resolved by removing the account from HTC Facebook for Sense, logging in again and linking a contact.
Hope this helps someone.
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Click to collapse
This is a great explanation. Very useful. Thanks.

i had the same problem with windows mobile phones trying to sync to my computer. here is the solution : when to write a new contact in outlook say his name is ( Dave Smith ) open up contact field in outlook express and now point to new contact .where it says FULL Name ,click on this icon usually you would put the first name ,in this instance (Dave) in the box where it says First and (Smith) in the box where it says Last .Don't do that .where is says First just put the whole name in there i.e Dave Smith . save all info ,when you have synced your phone ,it will say Dave Smith in your phone.
hope this helps and you understand.

The free sync tool MyPhoneExplorer works fine for me and you can set the first,last option as well.