Thursday, March 06, 2008

Installing Windows Mobile Device Center on Windows Server 2008

I struggled for about an hour installing Windows Mobile Device Center on Windows Server 2008. Here's so you don't have to:

1. My first real lead was that Windows Mobile Device Center requires Windows Media Player to be installed. Yes, requires. How did I know that? Well, it certainly wasn't from this incredibly vague error message when running the WMDC installer: "The update could not be installed because at least one Windows component required by Windows Mobile Device Center is missing." Fortunately, I found a few links on the web talking about this, mainly this one.
2. So, the key is adding Windows Media Player to Windows Server 2008; however, the download page for Windows Media Player doesn't include releases for Windows Vista much less Windows Server 2008. The key is to turn on the "Desktop Experience" of your Windows Server installation. Instructions on how to do that are here.
3. After reboot, you should be able to successfully install WMDC.