WMDC not working on Business N?

Ever since I installed Vista I haven't been able to connect to my PDA.
I'm running a fresh Vista Business N build 6000, in Dutch (though my friend
with the same lincense but in English has the exact same problem with his
smartphone).
The PDA is a WM5 Dell Axim x51v, which worked (well, activesync has moods)
in XP two days ago, but now consistently shows up as an Unkown Device (but
in Dutch ofcourse). When I point it to the drivers on the cd it still
doesn't recognise the device.

There is a WMDC panel in the controlpanel but it's just the connection
settings (USB/bluetooth).
I googled around and found the beta 3 driver update, but it won't install
saying I'm missing required Windows components. I went as far as extracting
the .msi's to find more drivers and executables but the drivers don't
recognise the device either and the executables (including wmdc.exe) don't
do anything but stay resident.

Some others (and me) have complained that there is no WMP download for us N
liccensors, maybe WMDC requires media player?