This question is often asked by developers who are either new to the Smart Device development or developers who don't have ActiveSync installed or who don't want to install ActiveSync.

Debugging a smart device project typically require the following:

  • Client side binaries on the device - VS needs them to communicate.
  • Establishing a connection to the device
  • Disabling the security features of the device for debugging.

This MSDN article has step-by-step instructions that would enable debugging without ActiveSync.

Happy Debugging :)

Manav