Pocket PC Thoughts: Email Problem With Windows Mobile 2003 And Your ISP?

Since Windows Mobile 2003 has been released, some have reported problems getting email where their previous Pocket PC 2002 devices had no problems with the same server. It may be a combination of more advanced features in the new Inbox client and a misconfiguration on your ISP's server. If your email server has SSL enabled but it isn't working for whatever reason (no certificate, mis-configured, etc.) Pocket PC 2003 will fail. It sees the server is SSL capable and when it can't negotiate a secure connection, it just gives up and reports a failure to you. Pocket PC 2002 devices of course didn't support SSL so they never knew the SSL connection wasn't working.

The answer is a registry hack. I don't recommend you do this unless you have this problem as it could disable your ability to use email servers that are properly SSL configured, or your email is done over an open unsecured connection. This seems to be a system wide setting, not a per inbox setting.

1. For registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Inbox, create new DWORD ForceOffSSL and give it a value of 1.
2. Soft-reset device (or stop Inbox and restart Inbox)