We have added a few BlackBerry PDAs to our world. The price-tag of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server has us using Desktop Redirector.
In our Windows / Linux / Macintosh client world (with Microsoft Exchange) the addition has not been entertaining.
This section will be a collection of notes & solutions we have found to the small hurdles.
Note: you will see a number of links to third party support forums rather than Research in Motion's support pages. RIM seems to have fallen prey to the need to endlessly re-organize their support pages resulting in links failing after short periods of time. Sadly, the ability to navigate, or search, to useful information is extremely limited. By the way, RIM's commercial support sources are not an improvement.
BlackBerry Desktop Redirector 4.2 SP2 (English)
Desktop Manager 4.2 Download & Usage Guide
Desktop Manager 4.3 Download & Usage Guide
BlackBerry Desktop Reditector 4.1 through 4.3 differences
Just don't
Parrallels USB support (Build 5582 Dec 2007) still is pretty flaky. It is common to be able to see the USB connected BlackBerry in Windows, but Desktop Redirector cannot see it.
The tendancy of the BlackBerry to 'go to sleep/switch to a low power mode' seems to reset the USB connection.
Use your ex-PC as a redirector and Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection for Macintosh to access the desktop.
In 2007 it has to be embarrassing for a leading corporation not to be able to write an installer that will actually uninstall software. Microsoft gets a hit by people who don't seem to understand that the software developer controls how useful, or useless, their installation and de-installation tool is.
Instructions derived from:
www.blackberryforums.com/rim-software/25937-how-perform-clean-uninstall-reinstall-blackberry-desktop-software.html
The clean uninstall procedure removes all traces of the BlackBerry Desktop Software. It consists of five tasks.
1. Uninstall the BlackBerry Desktop Software
2. Delete the Research In Motion® folders from the registry
3. Delete the Roxio folders from the registry
4. Restart your computer.
5. Register alt.dll (reinstall only).
To uninstall
To delete the Research In Motion folders
Roxio folders exist in the registry with Desktop Manager version 4.2 and 4.3
To delete the Roxio folders
The desktop software should now be fully uninstalled. Restart the computer to make sure that all background processes are cleared from system memory. It looks like the current (4.2 & 4.3) Installers actually remove the directories and files that are part of the installation. You may want to look inthe normal places for left-over files
Look for Research in Motion, BlackBerry & Roxio in:
Note: If you are unable to see the Application Data folder, it might be a hidden system folder. Use Tools\Options to see hidden folders
Before you re-install the desktop software, register the atl.dll file.
It is unclear if this step needs to be done, but...
For Windows XP
Complete the following to fix:
This setp was derived from help found in www.blackberryforums.com