Serial Ports and IMEIs

Question

I need to be able to read the IMEI from Windows Phone version 7 and 8 devices via the USB port of an attached PC.  This is facilitate scanning devices as they are received for repair and tracking them through the warranty repair process.

I have read in other forum posts that one approach for doing this is to send the following Hayes command to the phone which prompts it to return its sn:

AT+CGSN

Is this a viable approach to interacting with Windows Mobile 7/8 devices via the USB port?  If not, I'm open to suggestions of other approaches.

Mark

Answer 1

There is no supported method or API to get the phone's IMEI.

Answer 2

Thanks Steve!

I sort of garnered from many of the past posts in this forum (and others) that accessing the IMEI/ESN from a mobile app running on the device itself was not supported by the standard APIs.  But, I'm not really looking for a way to read the IMEI from a mobile app that would be running locally on the phone.

My situation is a little different.

As devices are received for repair we track them throughout the repair process by their IMEIs in a relational DB.  So, the devices are physically in a repair facility for all sorts of different issues.  With Android devices we use the Android Debug Bridge (ADB.exe) to read the ESN/IMEI across a USB connection.

I saw a few posts in Nokia's forums about reading the IMEI across a virtual serial port being emulated across the USB interface using a terminal application (such as HyperTerm) by issuing the following Hayes command:

AT+CGSN

I think this would actually be a very viable method for us.  But, I'm not quite sure as to whether or not the newer Windows Phone devices (e.g. HTC 8x) support emulation of RS-232 style serial communications across the USB interface.

Mark

Answer 3

Well,

Some nice folks in the Nokia forum recommended the Windows Phone Connect tool (WPConnect.exe).  But, I don't have a Windows 8 system handy to install the Windows 8 Phone SDK.  Can anyone tell me if WPConnect can aid me in this endeavor?

Mark

Answer 4

It appears that WPConnect is not supplied with the Windows Phone 8 SDK.  Is it a correct inference on my part that it was needed with the Zune based connectivity for syncing content and is no longer needed?

Mark