MSN Direct Outlook Plugin Failure
One of Microsoft’s unfortunate mobile strategy failures was MSN Direct and SPOT (Smart Personal Objects Technology). I say “unfortunate” because I have two Suunto SPOT watches and an annual paid subscription for MSN Direct Plus that gave me the ability to sync my Outlook calendar over the air with the watch.
Unfortunately, the…
MSN Direct Calendar Add-in 1.2.27824
…does not install at all in Microsoft Vista. And, I just found that it fails at the end of its installation process in Microsoft Virtual PC (beta) Windows XP Mode (a virtual machine under Windows 7). You can see the failure message in the screenshot above.
And, since the MSN Direct project has been dormant for a couple of years now, there’s no chance of a plugin update. To make matters more annoying, Microsoft doesn’t even provide contact information on…
…to let me cancel my $69.96 annual subscription. I’ll start making calls to figure out how to do this the hard way over the next few days.
I still think SPOT was a good idea that just never lived up to its potential.
did anyone get this working? I am having the same exact issue
And I thought I was the only one left with a Spot Watch on my arm…
I had the same problems months back on a fresh Vista install. I wish I could tell you how, but somehow it have a dll version 1.2.45496 (dated 6/21/2007) Not sure where I got that, but it worked great on Vista and the sync worked fine.
On the other side of this, I just loaded up Win 7 and I can only find the 1.2.27824 version at this time…BUT, it loaded and is working fine.
FYI, both the Vista and the Win 7 were/are 64 bit in my case.
I still think this is a great thing…I love having my appointments show up on my watch. It has saved me many a time.
This is a known issue. Please call MSN Direct customer support for help with this issue:
1-866-658-7032
Monday – Friday 8:00am-12:00am EST
Saturday – Sunday 8:00am-9:00pm EST