On our LAN we have about 130+ Windows mobile devices all setup to use ActiveSync over the air. When setting these devices up initially we found that when ActiveSync’s connection type was set to “Automatic” as it is by default it tries to proxy the phone connections via a non-existent server. The work around is to tell ActiveSync that the computer connects directly to “The Internet” this makes it bypass any proxy servers and connect directly by itself.
After a bit of investigation it seemed that ActiveSync stored this setting in the following regkey:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows CE Services” Reg_SZ: DTPTNetworkType

On the 5 machines I checked it always had the same long character value depending on which option was selected. Rather than trying to deploy this via some kind of machine script I created and ADM template file that can be imported into a Group Policy item.

Code shown below:

CLASS USER
CATEGORY “Windows Components”
	CATEGORY “ActiveSync”
		KEYNAME “Software\Microsoft\Windows CE Services”
		POLICY !!ConfigureActivesyncNetworkType
			EXPLAIN !!AS_Explain_NetworkType
			PART !!ConfigureActivesyncNetworkType	DROPDOWNLIST NOSORT REQUIRED
				VALUENAME “DTPTNetworkType”
				ITEMLIST
					NAME “Automatic”	VALUE “{0}” DEFAULT
					NAME “The Internet” VALUE “{436EF144-B4FB-4863-A041-8F905A62C572}”
					NAME “Work Network” VALUE “{A1182988-0D73-439E-87AD-2A5B369F808B}”
				END ITEMLIST
			END PART
		END POLICY
	END CATEGORY
END CATEGORY

[strings]
ConfigureActivesyncNetworkType=“Configure ActiveSync connection type”
AS_Explain_NetworkType=“Used to configure the ‘This computer is connected to:’

To import this code save it as a .adm file then run “Group Policy Editor”, right click on “Administrative Templates” under “User Configuration” and pick “Add/Remove Templates”. Addin the new ADM file and you should then be returned to the Group Policy editor. The new setting is technically a preference rather than a policy so it won’t show by default. To make this show then click on “View” and untick “Only show policy settings that can be fully managed”. The new setting will now show under “User Configuration – Administrative Templates – ActiveSync – Configure ActiveSync connection type”. Enable the setting and make your selection.