Mike Southby

There have been a lot of reports recently by numerous people around the internet, that there seems to be ongoing problems with people syncing their iPhone to iTunes in a Windows 7 environment.  The official Apple forums [Link] have got a number of threads related to the issue so it does appear that this is definitely a problem and this is not just a bunch of die hard Apple fans trying to add a negative taste to what has been otherwise, a successful launch for Microsoft’s latest operating system.

Now, looking at the problems people are facing, there does seem to be some common similarities; most people who are reporting the problem are using a motherboard with an Intel P55 chipset and the problem seems to be affecting more people using Windows 7 x64.  Both of these are not conclusive though, as it is also affecting people using other chipsets and Windows 7 x86, although certainly, less so.

The official advice – as always – seems to be a workaround, suggesting that you should use a USB hub or PCI USB card for connecting your iPhone, and disabling Power Management for each of the USB root hubs on your machine, but none of these seem to work universally for everyone which to me would suggest that neither Apple or Microsoft still really understand what the problem is and that there isn’t an imminent fix.

Fortunately, I don’t have an iPhone so am not affected by this, how about you?  Have you had problems with iPhone/iTunes syncing with Windows 7?  If so, have you been able to fix it or come up with a workaround?  Share your thoughts!

There seems to be a lot of confusion over the new naming convention for Windows 7.  Microsoft in all their wisdom seem to change direction each time a new version of Windows is released and each time, the name doesn’t seem to follow the previous.  So, I thought I’d explain the logic behind why the latest version is called Windows 7.

Microsoft has decided to start calling this and future releases of their Windows operating system based on their version numbers.  Versions previously known by other numbers (95 and 98) or name (Me, XP and Vista) used internal version numbers.  XP was version 5.1 and Vista was version 6.0 for example.

So the story in the evolution of Windows so far is:

Windows 1 was released in November 1985, 2.0 in October 1987, and 2.1 (which was also known as Windows /286 and Windows /386) in May 1998.

Windows 3, which first introduced 32-bit capabilities came to market in May 1990, and came into its own with versions 3.1 in April 1992.

Microsoft then split off a ‘new technology’ version of Windows to compete with UNIX.  It was influenced by Microsoft’s then partnership with IBM who created OS/2.  The development of this new version began as OS/2 version 3.  It shipped as Windows NT 3.1 in July 1993 and was a fully 32-bit operating system.  It was also the first version of Windows that did not run as a shell on top of DOS.  Windows NT 3.5 shipped in 1994, and 4.0 in 1996.

Windows 4 came out as Windows 95 in August 1995 and was the first consumer version with 32-bit support and pre-emptive multitasking.  Windows 98 arrived in July 1998, and a second edition (Windows 98 SE) replaced it in 1999.  Windows Me shipped in September 2000 and was the final consumer version of Windows 4; it was also a complete flop.

Windows 5 arrived as Windows 2000 in February 2000 and was a replacement for NT 4.0.  The consumer version, known as Windows XP (or Windows 5.1), was released to manufacturers in August 2001 although not available on the retail market until October.  The latest version is SP3.  Windows Server 2003 (Windows 5.2) replaced Windows 2000 in April 2003, and its latest version is SP2.  Microsoft released separate 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Sever 2003 in April 2005.

Windows 6 was named Windows Vista, released to manufacturers in November 2006 and reached the retail market in January 2007.  Vista is also available in 64-bit editions.  Windows Server 2008 is also another version of Windows 6.

So there we have it the story so far and today, we see the official launch of the 7^th incarnation of the Windows family – Windows 7.

Makes perfect sense really doesn’t it?

You all remember the Windows vs. Mac ads don’t you?  I guess in fairness Apple always knew they were on to a winner with those.  The humble pc and Windows may well be the winner in the corporate IT world but that’s not who the adverts were targeting, no they were targeting the average home user who wants an all in one solution that just works, and I have to admit the Mac does, and it does it very well.

So when it comes to marketing brilliance, it seems Apple are all over Microsoft.  But could it be that they have new competition?

Being an Android user and fan, I just had to smile when I came across this earlier today, further details can be found here.

iPhone

Here’s a brief walk through for configuring your iPhone (or iPod Touch) to work with true push-services on a Microsoft Exchange 2007 server.  Thanks to my good friend Steve for lending me his iPhone to have a play with and write this article.

Caveat: This method worked fine for me, but as always you follow this guide at your own risk.  I will not be held responsible for any problems along the way.  Please *do* backup both the Exchange server and your iPhone before making any changes.

What you’ll need:

• IIS (I have used v6, but the basics are essentially the  same for previous versions)
• Exchange 2007 with installed Service Pack 1
• iPhone running 2.1 or greater software

Step 1: Installing RPC over HTTPS

1. On the Windows server that is running Exchange, go to the control panel and then Add or Remove Programs.
2. Click the Add or Remove Windows Components tab, click Networking Services and then click Details.
3. Click to select the RPC over HTTP Proxy check box and then OK followed by Next.  You’ll need to have your Windows server installation disc ready at this point, or the i386 folder if you have made a local copy as some additional files will be needed to install this component.
4. When the Windows Component Wizard has completed installing, click Finish.

Step 2: Configuring RPC with IIS

1. Click Start, go to Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
2. Expand $servername, expand Web Sites, expand Default Web Site, right click Rpc and then click Properties. (You’ll also notice that Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 added a new virtual directory called RpcWithCert.  This virtual directory points to the same location as the Rpc virtual directory.  You do *not* have to modify this)
3. Click the Directory Security tab, and then click Edit under Authentication and Access Control.
4. Click to clear the Enable Anonymous Access check box, we do not want this.
5. Click to select the Basic Authentication (Password is sent in clear text) check box.
6. Now, you should receive the following message: The authentication option you have selected results in passwords being transmitted over the network without data encryption.  Someone attempting to compromise your system security could use a protocol analyser to examine user passwords during authentication process.  For more detail on user authentication, consult the online help.  This warning does not apply to HTTPS(or SSL) connections.  Are you sure you want to continue?
7. Click Yes.
8. If you have not done so already, now would be a good time to enter your domain name into the Default Domain box (you can browse to the domain name by pressing Enter).
9. Click OK.
10. Finally, click Apply and then OK to finish.

Step 3: Configure RPC SSL in IIS

The RPC virtual directory has now been configured to use basic authentication in the above steps.  We are now going to configure SSL.  To configure SSL on the RPC virtual directory you have to obtain and publish a certificate or use the self sign method.  I have used the self sign method in this walk through.  If you only want to access your exchange server without SSL (i.e. using port 80) you can skip the next 3 steps.  This however is *not* recommended.

1. In Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager expand Web Sites.  Expand Default Web Site.  Right click Rpc and then right click.  Click Properties.
2. Click the Directory Security tab and then Edit under Secure Communications.
3. Click the Require Secure Channel (SSL) check box and also the Require 128-bit Encryption check box.
4. Click OK, click Apply and then click OK.

Step 4: Self Sign an SSL certificate for IIS

Next we need to provide a self signed certificate (or a commercially available signed one, iPhone works with both) .  You’ll need a free tool provided by Microsoft SelfSSL which comes with IS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools.  You can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=56fc92ee-a71a-4c73-b628-ade629c89499&displaylang=en.  Once you have downloaded and installed this, make sure you click Complete Installation.

1. Click Start > All Programs > IIS Resources > SelfSSL > SelfSSL to run the SelfSSL utility.  When you do this, you should have a command prompt window appear with help instructions.
2. Type selfssl.exe and press Enter.  The utility will use the default settings to install the SSL certificate which are:
   /N:CN=<YOUR COMPUTER NAME> (common name of the certificate)
   /K:1024 (key length of certificate)
   /V:7 (validity of the certificate in days)
   /S:1 (ID of the site to which the certificate needs to be installed i.e. Default Web Site)
   /P:443 (SSL port)
3. Press Enter, then type y and press Enter again to confirm the installation.

Step 5: Port Parameters in the Registry

You can manually edit the registry but it is easier and safer to use a utility to do this.  I’d recommend a tool called RPCNoFrontEnd which does all of the changes in only a few mouse clicks, available from http://www.mikesouthby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/rpcnofrontend.zip.

1. Run the tool, all you need to do is input the servers name and click Set registry entries now.

Step 6: Configure Exchange 2007 SP1 to use RPC over HTTPS

1. Click Start, click through Microsoft Exchange and click System Manager.
2. Expand Your Organisation; expand Administrative Groups > First Administrative Group > Servers.
3. Right click on your server name and select Properties.
4. On the General tab, verify that you have SP1 installed.  Also, verify that a tab called RPC-HTTP is also present.
5. On the RPC-HTTP tab, click on RPC-HTTP Back-End Server.  At this point you may get an error, if you do just acknowledge it.
6. Keep clicking OK to exit.

Now, everything is set up as far as the server is concerned.  It’d be a good idea to reboot at this stage.

Step 7: Firewall ports for RPC over HTTPS

On your router, you’ll need to open the following ports:
No-SSL setup: TCP port 80
SSL setup: TCP port 443
if you are also running NAT on your router, you also need to port forward these ports to your server running Exchange/IIS.

Step 8: Configuration of the Exchange Account on iPhone

1. Tap Settings, then Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and then Add Account.  Finally click Microsoft Exchange.
2. Enter your complete email address, domain, username, password and a description for this new account (obviously, this can be anything you like).
3. Your iPhone will now try to locate your Exchange server using Microsoft’s Autodiscovery service.  If the server cannot be located, enter your Exchange server’s complete address in the Server field.  Your iPhone will try and create a secure (SSL) connection to your Exchange server.  If you did not setup SSL, it will try a non-SSL connection.  After successfully making a connection to the Exchange server, you may be prompted to change your device pass code to match any policies that may be enforced on the Exchange server, if so you can choose to do this or change the policy!
4. Choose which type(s) of data you would like to synchronise: Mail, Contacts and Calendars.  By default, only 3 days worth of email will be synchronised, to change this go to Settings, then Mail, Contacts, Calendar and select your Exchange account.  Here, choose how many days worth of email you’d like on your iPhone.

Important note: Once you have configured an Exchange ActiveSync account on your iPhone, all existing contact and calendar information on your iPhone will be overwritten.  Only one Exchange account is permitted.  iTunes will no longer sync contacts or calendar entries to your desktop computer however you can still sync your iPhone wirelessly with MobilMe services.

Please do leave a comment if you find this useful.