Windows Vista support in PDANet v1.72
PDANet from June Fabrics has been a real life saver for me. I use this software essentially everyday with my Samsung Q1 UMPC and it allows me to USB and Bluetooth tether my EV-DO enabled smartphone for use as a modem. I personally prefer USB connections because I get the full bandwidth available; Bluetooth provides me about 30% of the throughput.
I was nosing around on the PDANet site for Windows Mobile and saw this little tidbit: "New! Version 1.72 adds support for GSM/GPRS devices such as T-Mobile MDA or Cingular 8125! It also supports Vista and Bluetooth/InfraRed connection through ActiveSync."
Well, well, well…..that functionality really comes in handy right now. Why is that? Uh…I can’t tell you for sure, but I can drop a hint or two… 
Great app.. I had heard about this when I was using a Treo but did not know they had updated it to support windows mobile. Tried it out and I must say I was very impressed. I am certainly going to be getting this one.
Pdanet sounds pretty cool.. so I decided to give it a try. After good install, I tried to connect it to the net, only to find that it just wouldnt connect. I cant seem to find why it doesnt work. IE on my MDA works fine and connects to the web pages, but on the pc it doesn’t pull up any pages. What could be wrong??
The comments above state “it also supports Vista” however Vista does not support Active Sync. I’ve tried forcing the issue and loading Active Sync anyway and running in downward compatibility mode however Vista will only work (in my case 700w) with it native Windows Mobile Device Center (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/activesync/default.mspx)
does NOT work with Vista RTM, keeps looking for active sync which doesn’t exist on Vista.
PDANet does indeed work with Vista as I’ve used it with the Vista beta. Bear in mind what PDANet calls ActiveSync is called WMDC or Windows Mobile Device Center in Vista. WMDC is still in beta, so it could fluky, but PDANet does support it.
I’m curious… Why is this software even required? I connect with my Q1 and MDA through Bluetooth DUN with no problems.
No need for third party software.
Josh, you’re correct; in some cases it’s not necessary if you have the knowledge on how to set up a BT DUN connection with your phone. However, the carriers “dumb down” the phone functionality by disabling the BT profile or by not including modem software. PDANet is a plug-n-play solution that works well in these cases. Additionally, PDANet supports easy tethering over a USB cable which is several times faster than a BT connection.