Guide To Palm on Windows x64

Introduction:

Palm has been around for a long time, and really they’ve pioneered the earlier days of hand-held PDA’s. There has always and will always be a debate however, on who makes the best PDA. Some people hate Palm and swear by Dell, or Toshiba handhelds, and other people just swear at Dell. Regardless, of your preference, the truth is that Palm’s software is a little wacky. What’s more, the Palm device has zero support for Windows Professional x64.

Quite a while back I made the move to Windows x64 for my development applications and kept Windows XP Pro as my “Gaming” OS. I dual boot and choose which I want to use. I like to keep my gaming side free of junk and running as fast as possible, so naturally, I’d want all my Palm related stuff (Palm Desktop, Hotsync Manager, extra conduits, etc) on my Development side. Unfortunately, when you plug your Palm into the USB cable, Windows x64 refuses to install drivers and support this device. Palm states on their site that is there no support of x64 and appears not to care that many users cannot use their device. Windows XP Pro x64 has been on the market for quite a while, and should be supported by every piece of hardware, peripheral, and accessory that you can plug into your computer by now. This is why some people hate Palm.

Today we’re going to look at an easy way to get your Palm working 100% under Windows XP Pro x64. This will cost you around $20, but you’ll see that it can relieve stress and anger that your newly installed OS works with your Palm device. It’s either that, or reinstall regular XP Pro again.

Requirements:

To get this all working top-notch, you’ll need a Palm with Bluetooth capability and a USB Bluetooth dongle for your computer. Most Palms released within the last couple of years have Bluetooth, and a Bluetooth USB dongle can be found for under $20 many places. That’s all that it will set you back – one USB Bluetooth dongle. For this article, I’m using a cheap Insten dongle that I bought for $12 including shipping on eBay.

Before you start to mess around with your Bluetooth under Windows XP Pro x64, you should first install all of the latest Palm software. While Palm doesn’t have drivers for the actual Palm device for x64, the software should install fine. Make sure you have the latest version of Palm Desktop and the Hotsync Manager. If you want to install other conduits at this time, please do so.

Here’s the list of what you need:

• Palm Device with Bluetooth.
• Bluetooth capable computer or Bluetooth USB dongle.
• Palm software installed (Palm Desktop, Hotsync Manager minimum)

It’s really a short list, but that’s all you actually need to get going. If you’re Bluetooth dongle didn’t come with drivers, don’t sweat, Windows XP Pro x64 has built-in Bluetooth support that will work fine.

First Things First:

Go ahead and install all of your Palm software that you want to use at this time. Make sure that everything is working and you have the Hotsync icon in your system tray. If that is all done, it’s time to install your Bluetooth dongle.

Getting Blue In The Tooth:

Thankfully, Windows x64 seems to have pretty decent Bluetooth compatibility. I’ve tried a couple of USB Bluetooth dongles and they all detect and work fine for this project using the Generic Bluetooth Radio. To get Bluetooth working, simply plug in your USB dongle and it should install a generic set of drivers and you’ve got it. Once the Bluetooth is installed, you can access the “Bluetooth Devices” properties, either by right clicking the Bluetooth icon in your system tray, or by double clicking it in your Control Panel.

Generic Bluetooth Setup

Adding A COM Port:

Now that you have a Bluetooth enabled computer, you need to create a port that Windows can use to communicate with your Palm device. While you can do file transfers directly without a specific Comm port, Palm software requires that you have an actual communications port for their software to work properly.

Need A COM Port

To add a Communication Port, simply click the Add button. It will open a new window where you can select whether you want an incoming or outgoing port. Because the Palm device will initiate the Hotsync, we need to add an incoming port. Select “Incoming” and click okay.

Adding COM Port