Mobile Apps - Activesync or Outlook 2002 problem?

Asked By Mark

16-Feb-08 10:56 PM

Using Activesync 4.5 and Outlook 2002. When HTC Touch phone is
disconnected and Outlook is closed, Outlook actually is still running
as can be seen in Process Explorer.  This is causing me to not get
emails on the phone (which is configured to check the same email
account) because Outlook is still pulling them down to the desktop PC
thus removing them from the server.  Killing Outlook in Process
Explorer fixes the problem, of course, but that is a huge pain and
easy to forget to do every day.

I thought this might be an Activesync issue, and maybe there is a
setting to make it terminate Outlook's backgound process.  Or, if it
is an Outlook issue, then is it fixed in a later release?

16-Feb-08 11:44 PM

Hi,
In certain cases Outlook continues to run after you have completed
synchronization.  For example if you are in the process of downloading
e-mail from your server when you "close" Outlook, it will continue to run in
the background until the e-mail has been received.

There is no workaround for this.  If you kill the task, you are taking a
risk that you may corrupt your PST depending on what it is doing.


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Chris De Herrera
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http://www.mobilitytalk.com

17-Feb-08 02:44 AM

This is normal, so Outlook can still periodically receive e-mail even when


Three options come to mind off the top of my head- configure Outlook (on
the PC) to keep a copy of e-mails on the server for x# of days, configure
Outlook (PC) to never retreive e-mail automatically, only manually, or
consider using IMAP instead of POP if possible.  IMAP e-mail doesn't
evaporate when retrieved- it's a better solution for using one e-mail
account with multiple devices or computers.

17-Feb-08 03:20 PM

I spent more time investigating the issue.  Apparently, order of
operations is key:
Undock/disconnect the phone, THEN close Outlook - the background
Outlook task will terminate within a few seconds.

Otherwise, if Outlook is closed first and then the phone is undocked
the background Outlook task never terminates.  This would seem to be a
bug, or if it is designed to function in that manner, it seems an
option could be designed in Activesync to gracefully terminate the
Outlook task, if running, when the phone is undocked.

Microsoft: If indeed the above is true, can you please consider the
new option/functionality proposed above?  (If there is a better place
to request such new functionality, please let me know).

Thanks to all who responded.