Communicating with the MC40 via the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP)

I thought everyone knew how to do this, but I've gotten inquiries from a couple of folks this week asking about connecting their MC40 to their desktop to transfer APKs (application installer packages) to their devices.  So I figured I'd write up a short "how to" on this topic.

Android implements Microsoft's Picture Transfer Protocol android.mtp | Android Developers, for transferring pictures to and from the device.  The Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) is an extension of PTP that gives the user the ability to transfer any files to and from the device.  This protocol is much safer to use because of its limited feature set, than USB mass storage in use on Windows Mobile.  MTP works on a single file at a time and allows the user to copy(or delete) that file to and from the device.  USB mass storage (UMS) is a full implementation of a remote file system, giving the user full access to the file system including the ability to edit files and format the drive.  As you could imagine, having access to such powerful tools could undermine the stability of the Android device.

I believe MTP is enabled by default on the MC40 Jellybean (Android 4.1.1) devices, but for some unknown reason, this is not always the case.  This is demonstrated by the occasional support calls I get.

So here are the steps to enable MTP on the MC40 and ensure that it will show up under the devices and drivers section on Windows Explorer

This display was taken from a Windows 8.1 desktop so your view may differ

On the MC40, start the settings app and look for the Storage button.  Click that Storage button.

Once on the storage dialog, click the properties soft key.  This key is the second from the right in the row of keys along the bottom of the device.  This will launch a popup menu with only one item "USB computer connection".  Tap on the item.

This will take you to the "connect as" dialog where you simply check "media device (MTP)".

After connecting the MC40 to the desktop via USB, it will then show up as a connected device and you will have the ability to transfer files to the device from your laptop.

Finally, the screenshots shown in this blog were pulled from the MC40, but the same process will work for any of our Android devices.