Windows Phone Won’t Connect? Try This

Lately my Samsung Focus has been giving me a lot of trouble. Specifically, when I connect it to my PC, the Zune client reports that it’s not connected. This means I can’t sync the phone. Worse, I can’t load apps onto it from Visual Studio for testing.

After scouring the Web for solutions, I came across a forum post that worked for me and evidently worked for a lot of others, too. If your Zune client says your phone isn’t connected when it really is, try this:

1. Open the Windows Certification Manager on your PC. (An easy way to do it is to click the Start button and type certmgr.msc into the search box.)
2. In the left pane of the Certificate Manager window, expand the item named Personal.
3. Under Personal, click Certificates to show the personal certificates stored on your machine.
4. In the right pane, find the certificate (or certificates) issued by “zune-tuner://windowsphone/…”, as shown below.
5. Delete those certificates.

Now restart the Zune client and connect your Windows phone. With a little luck, you’ll be back in business.