This XKCD describes what I feel like right now.

I cannot figure out how to get the iPaq to reliably connect to Alcyone. In fact, at this point it won't connect at all. Plugging it in does nothing whatever.

It occurred to me that I somehow got mixed versions of the drivers, so the thing to do was to uninstall everything and start from scratch. Only problem is that the uninstallers... don't. Or not completely. So stupid me, I tried manually removing some stuff. And it didn't get reinstalled afterwards.

It occurred to me that what I really needed to do was to roll back from backups and start clean, using the backup from Wednesday morning just before the iPaq was delivered.

But when I tried to do a restore on Alcyone using the special boot disk, it wouldn't. It couldn't find Deneb. I remember running into this before.

There are three blocks of IPs reserved for LAN use. One of them is 10.*.*.*. One of them is 192.168.*.* which is what I use on my LAN. I can't remember what the third one is, but last time I figured out that it's what the restore CD expects to be used. Since Deneb's IP is 192.168.1.2 the restore CD couldn't find it.

I need to get this fixed. What I need to do is to find that other block (anyone know what it is?) and change my whole LAN over to use it.

But given that I couldn't roll back Alcyone, then it occurred to me that maybe I could get the interface software installed on Arcturus, the XP machine I use for torrents. Nope.

On Arcturus I got caught in Adobe hell. Seems that the installer needs Flash 8+. I tried installing Flash, but in order to do that Adobe insisted on installing its download manager first, and that process locked up. I have no idea why.

I tried installing it using FireFox, and succeeded. Only problem is that doing so didn't also install Flash for IE, and it looks like the installation disk is using the IE common libraries in order to reach Flash. The fact that Firefox had it didn't help; the installation disk wouldn't run.

It's not like I need to sync multiple times per day. In fact, the only reason I need it is that it's the only way to get software installed onto the iPaq.

Fortunately, I did manage to get TCPMP over there before everything went sour, so it can still be used as a remote video playing device. But without the sync software running on something, the device is crippled.

The make tree keeps getting bigger. I don't know if I can deal with this.

UPDATE: I found a place on Microsoft's web site where I could download the installer for ActiveSync 4.5. Turns out that the version which is on the CD won't run on XP anyway. So I downloaded and installed ActiveSync 4.5 onto Arcturus and... it can't see the iPaq.

The iPaq doesn't even show up as undifferentiated external storage, the way my camera does. Irrespective of any fancy drivers, that's supposed to work. It's almost as if the USB port on the iPaq is dead or something.

I also downloaded the latest version of Windows Mobile Device Center and installed it on Alcyone. No effect at all.

I have another idea. Very, very unlikely to make any difference, though. I'm using the cable they provided, which connects to a big wide connector on the iPaq. The iPaq also has a mini-USB connector, and next time I go to the store I'm going to buy a cable which can connect to that, and see if it makes any difference.

Very unlikely, but miracles have happened.

I'm near to sending it back, though. I didn't spend $380 on this just to get a hand-held video player.

UPDATE: Nope, the mini-USB doesn't make any difference.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the USB interface on the iPaq has died. When it's plugged in to either computer I can't see any indication that there's anything there.

Even if nothing else works, when it's plugged in it should show up in the explorer as an attached storage device, like a thumb drive or like my camera. It doesn't even do that -- on either machine.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Vista at 11:00 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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