With a lot of trial and error and help from others on this list, I
sorted through all of the various postings on how to get synching set
up on palms, and I think I figured out the bottom line. Here it is.

The guts of Tom Hoot's classic method is simply this, leaving out the
uninstallations and reboots:

1. install palm software
2, remove the keys for applications0-3 from the registry
3. install the ecco conduits again to reestablish applications 0-3.

This did not work on my new tungsten E, and I think I found the two
additional steps:

1. As one of the other posters said, after installing the palm
software and before doing anything else, do a synch. This will set up
the protocols and will also install your bundled software, if you do
it from the installation CD. Of course, it does nothing with Ecco.
2. When you do step 2, you may have to remove more applications 0-3
becaue the new OS references more than one key for some of the apps.
Rather than figuring it out, I simply removed all of them other than
ones that I specifically wanted (e.g., documents to go). In my case,
that entailed deleting all of them up through application9, although I
probably trashed more than I needed to.

So if my experience is a guide, here is what to do. To be safe, at
the cost of wasted time and frustration, reboot between steps.

0. Back up your registry
1. move copies of your key ecco files (including the three in your
windows directory) to somewhere else in case you mess up.
2. delete your old palm software, and clean up after the uninstall.
3. Install your new palm software and do an initial synch from the
installation CD.
4. Delete application keys (as above, see Hoots and other posts for
locations).
5. Install Ecco conduits again (no need to reinstall anything else.
6. Reboot again.
7. For the first synch only, set ecco (from the tools menu) to do a
full synch with "clear pilot data first" checked. This will take
awhile but guarantees that you will get an exact replica on your palm,
at the cost of losing the 'welcome to palm' messages, etc.
8. Reset ecco synch options for normal synching.

BTW, in win 2000, I found relevant application keys both under
HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_USERS. I have hunch that only the latter
matters, but I don't know enough about Windows to know. And keep in
mind the standard warning: any change to the registry is dangerous.
Make sure you have a backup.

To those who sent notes: thanks. To others: I hope this helps.