Windows phone 7 tips - Please check that the Zune software is running and that Zune's sync partnership with your phone has been established

Hi all,

I write this article to help some of you when unlocking your windows phone 7 for development purposes.

Why do I write it ?

The reason is that I've spend  a lot of time when I've done it, to resolve the trouble about this process. For some of you, it may be passed for the first time, at the first attempt , but for the others, it was a nightmare... a very very black nightmare ever seen :)

What do you need to unlock the phone ?

- A windows phone 7 device :) A Samsung I8700 Omnia 7 in this article.

- Zune at www.zune.net

- Windows Phone Developer Tools at http://create.msdn.com/en-us/home/getting_started

- Visual studio (optionally for testing deployment to a device)

- An appHub account (with some fees :) ) or if your region is not available for an appHub account, you can subscribe onto your regional center. For example, I live in Mauritius, this country is outside of the global appHub, so I need to subcribe on Yallaapps to unlock my device.

Each of them are available for download.

First of all, install visual studio, the Zune (take care of this installation, read below) and finally the Windows Phone Developer Tools.

Zune install is one of the tricky part of the process. Don't plug your phone during this installation.

Once the install is finished, Zune looks for an available upgrade for the OS. ( Don't accept it, instead "Install later"), it is very important otherwise it will break all futures steps.

Your phone is now plug to your PC. In Zune Go to Settings :

Name your device :

Click OK to save your modification.

At this time, we're ready to register your phone.

Go to Start > Programs > Windows Phone Developer Tools > Windows Phone Developer Registration. Keep phone plugged and Zune running.

It will ask you to enter your account that has been activated on appHubs or others ( for me that was Yallaapps).

Normally, if everything goes well, it will display :

Troubleshoots :

- Error communicating with the developer portal. Please set the correct date and time on the phone, check the Internet connection and try again later ( ErrorCode:0x64) : if you have this error, set the same time on both side ( pc and phone ). Try to have the same time even in seconds unit.

- Please check that the Zune software is running and that Zune's sync partnership with your phone has been established : if you have this error and have checked that your phone is plugged on the pc and Zune is correctly running, do the following :
Go to setting, click update :

This problem is due to an incompatibility between the Zune version and the firmware update. You've certainly done an upgrade before. The restore point is the one that has keeped an image of your last firmware. In major case, the factory setting firmware is the one that is intact. I my case, I've done an upgrade just after I've bought the phone ;) . A hard reset doesn't work.

Before a restore, may be you must backup all your data on the phone. Installed apps will be lost after.

Don't worry to do a restore ;). During the restore operation, my laptop crashed and had rebooted. It was a nightmare for  me, what happened if it will not resume the process ??? The phone screen displayed a dramatic information aaaaaahhhhhhh. But be sure, it was not a problem. Restart Zune and plug your phone, it will redo all the processes from the beginning.


Once your phone is restored, redo the registration process. Normally, the process will be ok.


But that's not all.


You can now upgrade your firmware and your device remains unlocked!!!

If you do a hard reset, the phone will be locked, you need to do the same process registration . May be, you need to restore the factory version for that. 


For any problem on this process , you can post here, i'll reply you as soon as I can.


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