How to synch Vista with mobile calendar/contacts?

[Bob Forgrave]

My old WinXP machine synched perfectly with two SmartPhones over ActiveSynch
4.1. My new Vista machine, according to the MSFT site, is incompatible with
ActiveSynch, and the replacement Windows Mobile Solution Center says it
synchs through WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER, with no recognition of contacts,
calendars, etc..

Can anyone who has done Outlook synchronization with Vista provide guidance?
After two days of this fiasco, my Dell level 2 tech is stumped, MSFT wants
$79 to even speak to me, and the whole experience is making me consider a
downgrade to XP for better functionality.

Many thanks.

 

[Bob Forgrave]

I researched and solved this myself with the Mobile Device Center 6.1
download: (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devicecenter.mspx). It
synchs mail & tasks fine and generally appears to work better than ActiveSync
4.1, trading better media synching for a little less visibility on mail
synching progress. But the undersupported process for getting to this success
(both from Dell and MSFT) remains a critical issue.