Windows Mobile 6 Tip - Specific Ports for IMAP, SMTP, Etc.

One of the main reasons for moving to the AT&T Tilt was for the 'faster' network options 3G/UMTS/HSDPA plus Windows Mobile 6 was suppose to address a port mapping bug I've had on the Cingular 8125.

Our IMAP/SMTP services at work use non-standard ports for SSL/TLS connections, and you could not apparently assign these to non-standard ports with previous versions of Windows Mobile or PocketPC without doing some registry hacks.

Now, with Window Mobile 6 you can successfully append the port you want to connect to to the machine you are connecting to.  If your SMTP service is listening on port "444" and you SMTP server is called "smtp.mycompany.net" then the setting in the Mail setup is "smtp.mycompany.net:444" (with out the " quotes).

This tip should help others that might run into a problem with Google's new GMAIL IMAP support.

P.S. It appears that the AT&T Tilt is also referenced by AT&T as the 8925.  The unit is made by HTC that has a family of very similar if not exact models that go by 'TyTn II' and 'Kaiser.'

Comments

[David]

Thanks for this. I was able to get WM6 mail client connected to a Windows 2003 IIS SMTP server using TLS/SSL on port 587 by specifying the port :587 after the server name.

[Steve Holden]

Glad to be of help. Nice to know it works with IIS SMTP on Windows. I usually only connect to a Solaris IMAP server for work, and I'm guessing the GMAIL servers are running Linux of some sort.

[Peter Frederiksen]

Thanks, had trouble sending, because my ISP uses port 2525!

Thanks from Denmark, home of some certain drawings!

[Steve Holden]

Port 2525 is pretty obscure for sending email. Glad the tip helped.

[Miles]

Awesome tip! You saved me a big headache and allowed me to get rid of Sprint email client on my phone. Thanks!

[Steve Holden]

Glad to be of help. Those custom email apps from the carriers can be such a pain.

[Oliver]

Hmm... a HTC Touch HD at least doesn't support a port like 6987. Works fine with Port 987 e.g. just if anyone wonders why HIGH port numbers don't work.

[Steve Holden]

Oliver ... is the HTC Touch HD version 6.1 of WM? Or does it have the new 6.5?

It could be network specific ... maybe high port numbers are being blocked by the service provider?

[Oliver]

The Touch HD is 6.1, as are the newer Touch Diamond 2 and Touch Pro 2. As
HTC has its own Finger-Friendly UI in "Touch Flo 3D" and 6.5 is mainly UI
enhancements I don't really think it makes much difference. With HTC the
Touch Flo 3D enhancements in the newer models are the more interesting part.
Waiting for WM7...

Well, I first tried it on a WiFi connection, but just to find out I
connected my Notebook using the HD as HSDPA Modem and tried it in Outlook...
working without problems. I'd have wondered anyway: 3 (name of the Provider)
doesn't block VOIP or P2P Traffic, so why would these ports be blocked?

Perhaps WM6.1 has a limit like 4096 or something like that when it comes to
mail ports (although this seems pretty arbitrary). Well, as I can configure
the ports to anything I want it doesn't matter much, it works now with
non-standard ports so I'm satisfied.

Thanks for the answer and it was the second time I found the hints I needed
to solve a problem in your blog, so: thanks for putting interesting stuff on
there.

Best regards, oliver

PS: Sry if some formulations read odd, my native language is german.