Global Conflict

I am trying to backup my cell-phone phonebook on my laptop. Where do I activate the laptop infrared connection. It surely is boody simple but I do not find it

Infra-what? Oh yeah, my phone's got that too, though I don't know what for. There's USB and Bluetooth and some even come with WiFi nowadays. IR is so ... 1990?
Anyway, just so you don't get your hopes too high: I had 2 phones of the pre-usb era (a Siemens and a Nokia) and I didn't ever get any of those to communicate with any laptop. And yes, me and my mates did follow the guidelines to the letter. So I don't know how it is these days but I wouldn't bet that it's bloody simple...

Usually infrared ports found in laptops are on all the time, except when disabled. You would probably want to check the Device Manager and look if the infrared port is disabled or enabled. Last but not least you'll have to turn on infrared in your mobile. Most mobile phones switch the infrared port off if it's not used for some time.

I have infrared on my cellphone and bluetooth on my comp... to bad those don't match
but i use the infrared sometimes to send pictures or ringtones etc from my cellphone to that of a friend of mine

never noticed infrared on any laptop though

Double check that you HAVE iR on your laptop. Outside of that, you might be SOL.

Try to start a transfer from your cellphone, and then bring the two ir-interfaces close and alligned, a small icon should come up on you task bar..
I don't know how you can backup all your data, I used ir to beam files to and from my laptop, but the backup via ir must be supported by the software of the phone, that you should install on the laptop.