What I am up to right now

This is just a quick update on what is happening in my world right now. I just came back from the Christmas family holiday so not a lot of updates happened in the last two weeks.

I am also hitting the yearly verification and update cycle of all the school catchment map that has been already created. Anyhow enough rambling and have a late happy 2019 to everyone.

How to solve the problem that Motorola Android Phone and Tablet unable to Connect with the Computer as Camera or MTP device

This one is unrelated to my usual education topics, but I personally have spend hours if not days multiple times trying to resolve this issue with Motorola Android devices connecting to the computers as either, camera, MTP or ADP device. The problem started when I first acquired a Motorola Xoom tablet, one of the first usable Android tablet. No matter what I tried I could not connect to the Windows XP I was using at the time. I tried connect as ADP device, connect via debug mode, install Motorola USB drivers, plus just about everything that Google search can return, none worked. It is at end, finally some random forum mentioned that installing Media Center, so I installed that on Windows XP and everything just worked from that point.

I picked up a Motorola G 2nd Gen phone beginning of last year and it was a very solid phone for its price. I enjoyed the near vanilla experience and had no issue connecting to the Windows 7 that I was using at the time. Then after upgrading my computer and with the newly installed Windows 8, I had to go through this entire business again and problem is solved by installing Windows Media Feature which is no longer standard on Windows 8. Going on I have upgraded to Windows 10 at middle of the year which I loved so far, however I got the same problem back, so no issue since I know the solution already, just download and install the Windows Media Feature pack and problem solved.

Fast forward to November last year, suddenly that I could not connect the Motorola G 2nd Gen phone to the computer anymore. So I started going through the system and look like Windows update removed the Media Feature Pack, so I thought no issue, I will just do a Google search and install it again. So I clicked the first search result return in Google that in Microsoft installing Windows Media Feature Pack which download and install the Windows10-KB3010081-x64.msu.

To my surprise my trusty old fix no longer work again, so I went off on a tangent and wasted hours of my life going through the entire process again, trying and reinstalling various of drivers. Trying connect camera, MTP device and in debug mode etc, none worked. So I was pretty much back to the square one again. Without the abilities to connect the computer, my phone is close to being just a phone, so I persisted. Finally after more Google search I came across the solution, apparently the KB3010081 version of Window Media Feature Pack no longer compatible with my Windows 10 after the November update. So again after more Google searches, I found installing KB3099229_x64.msu and solved my connection issue.

So to summarise

First prepare by download and install the Motorola USB driver which is called Motorola Device Manager I believe in your system. Then carry out the following on your Windows version

  1. Widnows XP: Install Windows Media Center
  2. Widnows 7 and Vista: Windows Media Center is bundled and should just work
  3. Windows 8: Install Windows Media Feature Pack
  4. Windows 10: Should just work
  5. Windows 10N: You will have install Windows Media Feature Pack, please search and install KB3099229_x64.msu if you on November update or later.

I hope this save someone else some time, it literally wasted days of my life. Google searches does not return a straight forward answer for this issue and I only managed to solved the issue by piecing different things together.

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