[jasoneco]

Hi,

I recently left a firm where they used BES. I already had my own consumer blackberry 9800, which the firm then installed BES onto.

Prior to me joining the firm, I had about 4300 contacts under a contact list of name "myemail at mydomain dot com" (I just concealed my email address, but basically it is a googlemail address.) After synchronising with BES, I had a brand new contact list added onto the blackberry. This one is called "DESKTOP". Same deal with Calendar, there is a calendar called "DESKTOP" as well. During the time I worked at the firm, I added another 300 contacts within the "DESKTOP" list.

Problem is now when I try to synchronise my blackberry with my macbook, it only synchronises the "DESKTOP" part of my blackberry, not my other contact list. i.e. only the 300 or so names. As a result of this all, I also can't update my OS, because apparently my blackberry is no longer on the consumer path of operating systems it's on the BES path now.

I've been in into O2 who tried to remove it, and have since spoken to another O2 guru, but they said that once BES is on the blackberry, you can't get it off, even if you do a handheld wipe. They said only the IT guys of the firm I was working at would be able to remove BES (and presumably the associated servicebooks?).

Can anyone help? anyone know how I can totally remove "DESKTOP" from my blackberry (not just delete the contacts within it, but actually remove the whole thing of the blackberry)

Many Thanks,

Jason

[penguin3107]

When you activate any device on a BES, an IT Policy is pushed to your device as well as the BES-related service books to enable certain features of the handheld.

The IT Policy sets the restrictions on what your device can/can't do as a result of being part of the BES.

So.. there's two parts to your problem.
1. You need to remove the BES service books. That's what the [Desktop] contacts and calendar are. It's fairly simple and can easily be done from the device.

2. You need to remove the IT Policy which is going to be more challenging. You'll need to reset your device back to factory defaults. Don't bother doing #1 because #2 will do it for you.

Use BlackBerry Desktop software and do a FULL backup of your device.
Then see this KB article for removing the IT Policy.
KB14202-How to remove an IT policy from a BlackBerry smartphone

Once you have a factory reset device, you can restore the data you need from your backup. All BES code will be gone now.

The O2 people basically gave you the easy answer, not the correct answer.

[jasoneco]

Thanks. So I tried doing a factory reset. It did remove the databases, but when it came to restoring I then noticed that there are two entries in the list of items when doing a selective restore:

Address Book - 321 items
and
Address Book (All) - 4702 items
(See attached Screenshot)

However on the blackberry itself, it is easy to see that the Address Book is split into 321 entries (DESKTOP) plus 4381 entries (my other address book).

The problem is therefore, I'm not able to restore the address books separately. I need somehow only to restore the 4381, and I don't seem to know how to do this. If I click on synchronise using blackberry desktop manager, it will sync only the 321, but the other 4381 remain on the blackberry. argghhh!!!

Thanks in advance for your help!

[knottyrope]

want to remove the it policy

KB14202-How to remove an IT policy from a BlackBerry smartphone

[jasoneco]

I did that, I was able to wipe the handheld, and most importantly for the first time for months I was actually able to upgrade the OS to OS 6, because the IT policy prevented me from doing it before. However on restore, it still restores the 4702 contacts into two separate databases, just like before. "DESKTOP" (321 entries) and "my email address" (4381 entries). Another approach could be, if it is even possible, is to merge the two databases, backup, wipe handheld, selectively restore everything except the address books, and then restore the merged addressbook separately? Is this possible?

[jasoneco]

Any ideas anyone?

[tsac]

Unless you are restoring from a previous backup with all the contacts, the BB is still under control of the BES

[jasoneco]

I must be able somehow to sync the contacts from Address Book - All , to my machine? At the moment it only 'sees' the address book corresponding to DESKTOP. Any idea how?