Let me start off by acknowledging this isn’t exactly an original topic.  Many have discussed it in the various BlackBerry-related forums and RIM has an official article on it (albeit very old).  I even found a video with similar instructions for BES 4x.  What I couldn’t find however was an illustrated and current (BES 5x) walkthrough of testing “Enterprise Activation” from a simulated handheld; so if that’s what you are after, please read on…

Before I get into the steps themselves let’s take a look at one of the simulators, which is based on Blackberry OS 7 device software:

You should know this software is free!  You can download it here after you complete the registration.

Once you run through the application setup, you’re greeted with this intuitive interface

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Within, you can do all softs of fun things such as navigate the menus, take screenshots, simulate use of the touchscreen, compass and more.

What we’re after today however is Enterprise Activation (the process of associating the handheld with a Blackberry Enterprise Server).

Initially, I was discouraged to see Enterprise Activation was not working via the normal process:

But after some research I learned it can be completed via simulating a USB connection to the BAS interface instead.

To accomplish this, follow the below steps:

(Click images to enlarge)

1. Launch the simulator. You may need to resize the screen and click through a few pop-ups to get to the device’s main screen.
2. From the Simulate menu button, select USB Cable Connected.
3. From the same computer, launch the BAS web site. Accept certificate warnings and install ActiveX CAB files as prompted. Depending on your browser configuration you may need to adjust the security settings.	The default URL is: https://server.domain.local:443/webconsole/login (Bad)
4. You can verify the device is properly connected by expanding the Devices menu tree on the left and selecting Device properties.
5. Before you can begin the  EA process, you need to create a user. Select a user from your directory that does not currently have a Blackberry device. To do this, expand the BlackBerry solution management menu tree on the left and select Create a user. 6. Once on this screen, simply select Search from the right. It will pull up all of the users in your Exchange Server environment.
7. Select a test user and click Continue.
8. On the following screen, select Create a user without activation password.
9. Expand the Devices menu tree on the left and select Manage current device.
10. Select Assign the current device to a user.
11. Click Search once again and select the test user. 12. Click Associate user.
13. Once complete, notice a new envelope icon on the simulator (covered with a briefcase). This represents the new EA relationship.
14. Touch the new envelope and compose a test message.
15. Verify it reached its destination and that the message was saved to your test user’s Sent Items folder.

And we’re done! I hope this was helpful.