I have asked this question on superuser as well, but have not yet gotten a satisfactory answer. Since I feel that this question is relevant to (Windows Mobile) developers, I decided to ask it here as well. If you feel this is inappropriate, please don’t hesitate to close or delete this question.
When I browse the files on a remote Windows Mobile device using ActiveSync, I regularly want to view the contents of txt files (application log files, etc.). Windows XP is not able to open these files directly from the device, so I have to copy them to my local disk first before I can open them.
Is there a tool for WinXP that allows me to open the files in one click, rather then have to copy them first?
I am specifically looking for a desktop-based tool, not a tool that runs on the device. The reason is that I frequently hard-reset the device and I do not want to have to reinstall the tool each time I do that.
The short answert is “no” and the reason isn’t obvious when you don’t understand how what you’re currently seeing works. ActiveSync puts a “My Device” folder into Explorer, so when you click on a file, you’d expect it to behave like any other file.
But this is pure smoke-and-mirrors. That node you see is part of a shell extension – the device is not getting mounted as a storage device. The files you see are simply names that were marshalled across via a Remote API call. To edit a file, you have to pull the file across the wire to the PC. You would then edit it, and have to push it back.
Text editors do not know how to do this part of the equation – they simply know how to pull from storage and write back to it.
An analog to this might be trying to edit a text file that resides on an FTP site. You simply can’t edit it across the wire. You have to pull, edit and push (or have a tool that know how to do that for you – there are some that will do that for FTP).