Sync Center - Disable Mobsync.exe

How to Disable Sync Center Mobsync.exe in Vista​

   Information

We all at some stage have asked the question ‘What the hell is mobsync and how do i disable it?’ and been left scratching your head, especially if your the proud owner of Windows Vista.

Well to be straight with you it annoys me when people give definite answers on how to disable the feature when clearly its not the same as XP, Speculation has lead people to believe its a networking tool for your Internet connection, well almost right but not quite. Then that its windows media player, again its almost there but not quite and finally that its an Microsoft tool for reporting which is a bit stupid to be honest …

Thankfully there is a simpler explanation to the question and an even simpler resolution and it is as follows below.

   Note

What is Mobsync and how can i disable it?

Mobsync is a Microsoft owned tool which enforces group policy for removable mass-storage devices.

It simply enables applications such as Windows Media Player and Image Import Wizard to transfer and synchronize content using removable mass-storage devices. thus allowing you to plug in a USB, External hard drive or even a wireless media center for PS3 or Xbox Elite.

This will stop mobsync from running at startup and as you have set this service to run manually it will only be used when you actually sync devices on your PC or Laptop.

Here's How:

1. Open Services.​

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2. Scroll down the page until you locate a service called Portable Device Enumerator Service, then double click on it.​

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3. In the General tab (You should be on this already) half way down the page, change the ‘Startup Type' to Manual.​

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4. Click on the Stop button, then click on OK.​

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5. If prompted by UAC, select Continue.​

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So there you have it in a simple nut shell. Regards,

Craig

 

[JimJoe]

Doesn't work for me. It is on manual, but it Sync Center still runs.

edit:

If the 'what do you want to do with this device' popup shows, and I don't select syn center, but the one that displays my SanDisk Clip+ as a drive, it doesn't sync.

 

[FreeMXrus]

Realy usefull. Thank you!

 

[MilesAhead]

In Windows7 I was able to kill it off completely. In Vista I believe I still had to use an automatic program killer to kill off mobsync.exe every time something tried to start it. I think it's also used by Window Media Player to scan all your files looking for media files. I believe some flavors of Windows you can prevent it with the policy editor. But Home Premium I think you have to resort to a process killer monitor type utility.

 

[JimJoe]

Yeah, I got a warning about Media Player using it when I tried the tutorial to kill it.

 

[MilesAhead]

On Vista WMP is one of the apps on my auto kill list. On W7 it's a bit easier to control. I turned off all the indexing and indexing services. If I have a video I want to check out in WMP 12 I can do it without it taking over the machine.

For file search I use Everything Search instead of indexing.
I also turned off indexing in Vista 64 bit and use Everything instead.

 

[Placehold]

Hey guys,

Apologies for the delay in replies etc

I done a little research into the errors & issues you guys have had with these steps, it appears that in SP2 there was an connectivity update for storage devices which prevents Mobsync from being completely disabled in Vista however with the steps above should only activate when it detects a storage device or changes to the group policy.

Not sure why they changed this in SP2 but the good news is that yes you can completely disable this in Vista premium via group policy and in Win 7.

Regards







Craig