PC Connection issues

[intel8052]

So a while back I lost my mogul, sent in with insurance, and got a Touch pro back. I plugged it into my PC and it successfully downloaded all my data from windows mobile device center (I am running windows 7 beta).

So IIRC initially when I got this phone I was able to plug it into my computer, take pics off it, add files to it, etc... like you can with just about any phone these days, and esp WinMo phones.

Since then I havent connected to the PC much at all, I had no reason to. Well picture mail sucks on the phone, and I cant use pic mail or my gmail accnt to get pics off it for some reason so I tried to plug it into my PC and go from there, take the stuff I want off the phone and such.

Well I plugged in and it said it needed to find software which I thought was strange since I already used it on this computer before. It told me it couldnt find software for it when I did the search and I cannot access it at all. I tried running windows mobile device center and it crashes every time I try to run it. It says it stopped working, then the device center stays open displaying the "connecting" message. So I figured it was a Windows 7 issue and went to my XP laptop... nothing there... then to my parents vista PC... nothing there (makes the "connected device" sound, but then doesnt do anything).

The only changes I made to my phone are installing total commander, changing the reg file so it doesnt display "message sent" every time a text is sent, and changed the opera homepage to google. no custom roms or anything. I would normally do a hard reset and see if that fixes anything but I cant afford to lose all my contacts and since I cant sync with anything theres no way to back them up (the contacts should be on my windows 7 machine as they were before, but I dont trust it since the device center keeps crashing.)

I am going to uninstall all drivers for my phone and reinstall, and do the same for the device center, but any other ideas in the meantime?

Thanks
-Scott

Edit: when I connect to the pc it shows the device in teh netowrk connections area as remote NDIS based internet sharing device, no where else... not sure if it is reading it as internet only but the phone does not prompt me asking hwo to connect to the PC. In settings->USB to PC I have it set to "ActiveSync" and do have "Ask about connection type when I connect" selected

Edit 2: I unselected "enable advanced functionality" or whatever it is in the activesync option and it connected as a generic serial, and I am able to access the phone from "My Computer" now but windows device center still crashes (may be an independent issue). I KNOW for a fact now that I used to have the device connect with enhanced funcationality before. Can anyone think of why this would stop working?

[razorloves]

Did you uninstall and reinstall WMDC? On the XP machine, do you have ActiveSync installed?

[timlayton]

I am not clear on what the S30 brings to the table other than superficial changes over the previous model. Maybe they should consider running windows mobile 6.5 to make it better.

Then they could get some real apps like internet explorer mobile, live mesh for mobile, silverlight 2 for mobile, windows media player mobile, windows mobile marketplace,.NET compact framework, .NET mobile, compact framework, and SQL server compact. Microsoft has officially confirmed a new web browser for Windows Mobile, Internet Explorer 6.

The new Windows Marketplace for Mobile is a centralized place to buy increasingly popular mobile applications. Windows Mobile 6.5 features a new user interface and "honeycomb". A customizable start screen with hexagonal tiles for each program that are designed to be easier to use on touch-screen phones. The Windows Mobile start menu can be customized with Internet applications like weather or stock reports, that are automatically updated. The new Windows Mobile 6.5 user interface is designed to be more "finger friendly," You can also move icons up or down in the new layout. In addition, the new Windows Mobile Home screen will support special widgets, which will give status information like missed calls, new messages, etc. Another new feature of Windows Mobile 6.5 allows people to go directly to waiting voice mail, text messages or other information when unlocking their phones. Microsoft Recite, came out of the company's research group. It allows people to record voice notes or other audio files on Windows Mobile phones and then search for keywords using their voice.