Introduction

The ability to remotely control windows mobile devices could save a lot of troubleshooting/support time and cost. Here in this blog we will analyze on who needs these? What are these exactly? What options one has? How to deploy these tools? How to use them?

Who needs these?

Do you have/support a huge Windows Mobile User base in your organization? Do you have/support an SAP MI Implementation with hundreds of Windows Mobile end users? Do you have a lot of Rugged Windows Mobile PDAs in your landscape? Do you have a small number of Windows Mobile users whom you need to support remotely? If your answer is yes to any or all of these questions, then this blog is your first step in finding the right solution.

What are these?

1. These are software tools which can be installed on your local Windows Computer/remote Windows computer.
2. These tools connect to your device through either ActiveSync (Win XP, 2003) or Device Center (Vista).
3. These let you control your Windows Mobile device from the comfort of your desktop/laptop, locally/over LAN or even VPN!

What are the different options?

There may be a plethora of freewares, opensource tools or even paywares. Let us now look at some of the options in each category

Freeware

1. My Mobiler
2. Microsoft CE Remote Display (CERdisp)
3. EveryWAN Remote Support Personal Edition

Payware

1. SOTI Pocket Controller Pro
2. Trueconnect

Open Source

1. CeRemoteClient

How to Deploy?

1. You need to first get one of these onto the Windows XP desktops/laptops with ActiveSync manually or through LAN SMS / Push /Publish softwares.
2. Then, all you generally need to do is connect your Windows Mobile device to the ActiveSync + Remote controlling software enabled Desktop/Laptop.

How to Guides?

For the paywares, you don’t require how to guides, as they are generally well documented. I will try to cover some of them though. Check out the following sdn wiki links for the same (Links will get updated as soon as I post them/they get published):

1. My Mobiler
2. CERdisp
3. Pocket Controller Pro
4. CeRemote Client

In conclusion, I would like to sign off with three personal picks for you.  For ‘free’, I go with My Mobiler for its overall feature set and usability, and CERdisp for its simplicity. For ‘pay’ I go with Pocket Controller Pro, which according to me wins hands down with everything from usability to feature  set and device support to application support.

Update: First of all, thanks to Robert, EveryWAN Remote Support Personal Edition, according to me is a really good freeware to consider. I feel it is pretty self explanatory to use and a good freeware alternative.