Channel 9 - Entries tagged with Windows CE

Things You Didn’t Know Ran Windows

Sarah Perez — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:09:00 GMT

In response to an NYT article about Windows for a small world, blogger Mike Hall reminds us that there are tons of things out there running Windows – we just may not know it. Windows CE, also known by its full name "Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2,” is a embeddable OS that lets OEMs build specialized devices. Some obvious examples of this technology in action include Windows Mobile [Windows Mobile 6.1 runs on the Windows CE 5.0 operating system kernel], Zune, Microsoft Roundtable (video conferencing), and Ford Sync. However, it was Oliver Bloch who really surprised me with some of his examples of thing that run Windows CE.

For example, I didn’t know that Slingbox’s set top box ran Windows:

Set top Boxes: http://www.slingmedia.com/

And I guess I never thought about remote controls:

Remotes: http://www.espnremote.com/html/

Or picture frames:

Wireless picture frames: http://www.momentolive.com/default.aspx

But these are only the tip of the iceberg. The Windows Devices Showcase lists embedded OS examples extending from mobile devices to netbooks to VOIP telephones and much more. The showcase includes not just Windows CE, but also Windows Mobile, and Windows XP Embedded devices.

It’s here I discovered things like the home automation touchscreen computer, mPanel:

Matrox Imaging’s Windows CE "smart camera,” the Iris GT:

Oh, and my own personal favorite, the Symbol Technologies PPT 8800:

(Why is that my favorite? Here’s a hint.)

The POTUS-worthy PDA

Larry Larsen — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:26:00 GMT

ZDNet has an interesting story about hardware solutions for the Presidential Crackberry obsession. It turns out Obama may not have to give up his PDA after all, there are some secure options out there based on Windows. The article doesn't specify what flavor of Windows, but I'm going to guess CE as opposed to Windows Mobile.

Coming from a Defense Department project called SME-PED (Secure Mobile Environment Portable Electronic Device), the $3,350 Sectera Edge at least comes with a two-year warranty. It looks like there are still some obstacles (only covers data up to 'secret' classification), but it's a better choice than off-the-shelf hardware.

This week on C9: Oxite, Mona Lisa, Pool hacks, and Coding4Fun Gifts

Dan Fernandez — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:11:00 GMT

This Week on Channel 9, Brian and Dan discuss:

- Oxite: The open source ASP.NET MVC Content Management System (Adam Kinney's interview with the team)
- Roger Alsing uses Genetic Program to shape 50 polygons into the Mona Lisa
- Justin Needham and Matthew Straub use Windows CE to build a system that can predict the path of pool balls using a Webcam, projector, and mirrors
- Brian explains why you should use Live Search Cashback for holiday shopping
- Dan and Brian go through their favorite picks from the Coding4Fun Holiday Gift Guide

Top Picks
- Pico LCD 4x20 Programmable Display (Code it) ($49)
- SideWinder Keyboard for Gamers ($61)
- SideWinder Mouse for Gamers ($45)
- USB MSN Missile Launcher ($50)
- USB Endoscope (Code it) ($59)
- XNA Creator's Club (Code it)($99/year)
- Nabaztag, aka Brian the Build Bunny (Code it) ($99 - $199)
- Zune (Code it) ($99 - $249)
- Energy Detective Monitor ($189)
- Rock Band 2 (Code it) ($189.99)
- WowWee Rovio (Code it)($239.99)
- Erector Spykee (Code it "soon") ($247)
- .NET Micro Framework (Code it) ($400)
- HP EX470 MediaSmart Home Server (Code it) (449.99)
- Brian's pick of the week: Dual monitors + Synergy software as a poor man's KVM
- Dan's pick of the week: Install Live Mesh at home, on all of your PCs, and on your family's PC

Tis the season for giving so we're giving away a copy of Dan's book: Coding4Fun: 10 .NET Programming Projects for Wiimote, World of Warcraft, YouTube, and More to the first person to correctly answer our This Week on Channel 9 trivia question asked at the end of the show.

Paul Yao - What's new in the .NET Compact Framework 3.5

mikehall — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:43:58 GMT

Paul Yao (MVP) takes a look at the new and interesting features in the .NET Compact Framework for Mobile and Embedded Developers.

The .NET Compact Framework 3.5 ships as an update for Windows Embedded CE 6.0 as part of the QFE rollup for January 2008

- Mike

Porting a CE 5.0 BSP to CE 6.0 (Travis Hobrla)

mikehall — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:02:22 GMT

Travis Hobrla presented this session at last years Mobile and Embedde Developers Conference - the session walks you through the process of porting a CE 5.0 BSP to CE 6.0 - in this case using the CE 5.0 "CEPC" BSP as the starting point for a new CE 6.0 BSP.

- Mike

A look behind Windows Embedded

Larry Larsen — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:18:00 GMT

This week the Windows Embedded group released Windows Embedded 6.0 and Scott Davis invited me over to talk about gadgets, where things are going, and why you may not have as many cables in the future. Embedded systems are quickly becoming the norm, from digital picture frames and remote controls in your living room to the GPS in your car. In coming years, our gadgets will update over the Internet, communicate with each other, notify us of state by text message, and let us use them from a distance.

Scott also brought a very cool Neonode N2 (upper right in the screenshot at left.) It's a mini cellphone with a touch screen and tactile feedback. As you gesture to navigate the menus, you get a nice thump or vibration to confirm your choice.

Using CEDebugX with Windows Embedded CE 6.0 SP1

mikehall — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 20:55:05 GMT

Building an embedded operating system image is only part of the process for releasing a final product - Testing and diagnosis tools should also be an integral part of the release process - an operating system image may appear to be running just fine, but how do you really know that there aren't any issues lurking unseen within the operating system image - it's possible that your processes could corrupt heaps, orphan CriticalSections and do other nasty things, but how do you find out this has happened ?

This video shows the use of CEDebugX, a new (and extremely cool tool) that ships with the Windows Embedded CE 6.0 SP1 update.

Note that in the video I'm creating a KDump file, if you are running a debug image (or have the kernel debugger in your release image) you can run CEDebugX directly from the Windows CE Command Prompt against the operating system image without needing to create a kdump file.

- Mike

Windows Mobile 6.0 Things and Stuff

Rory — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:53:59 GMT

The Mobile and Embedded Devices Conference (MEDC) is taking place in Vegas next week, and I thought I'd post a little fun here to get things going.

Mel Sampat stopped by to demo some fancy-schmancy stuff in Windows Mobile 6.0. There's more going on now for both devs and users.

One of the nicer things about 6.0, at least from a dev standpoint, is that the .NET CF 2.0 and SQL Server Compact Edition 2.0 both ship in ROM, meaning you can deploy your nice little apps without having to deploy the runtime as well. That made me happy

In the video, you'll get to see some of what's new with Pocket Outlook, an experimental managed implementation of voice recognition APIs, and more.

It's because of stuff like that (managed voice recognition APIs?)

Visual Studio Orcas - Sync Designer, going N Tier with WCF

SteveLasker — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 02:33:00 GMT

In part 1, I used the Visual Studio Orcas Sync Designer to configure and synchronize 3 lookup tables to be cached locally in SQL Server Compact Edition using the Sync Services for ADO.NET CTP.

In part 2, I take the cached lookup tables and split up the client and server sync components using WCF to glue them together.
For more info about our Occasionally Connected Services scenarios, and Sync Services for ADO.NET, you can use the following links:
My blog
Sync Services CTP:
Sync Services Forum

Mikehall: Managed Application development for Windows Embedded CE 6.0

mikehall — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 16:18:36 GMT

Mike Hall, Senior Technical Product Manager, demonstrates how to configure a baseline CE 6.0 operating system (OS) image - We then add the list of components to the OS image that are needed to support a managed application within Visual Studio 2005 as an application development tool. Once the booted image is running, Mike shows how to get an IP address and then configure Visual Studio 2005 to deploy an application to that running OS image.

Application Compatibility: Migrating Windows CE 5.0 Application to Windows Embedded CE 6.0

mikehall — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:08:34 GMT

Mike Hall (that's me!), Senior Technical Product Manager, provides insights into the new Application Compatibility Tool. The CEAppCompat Tool reads executables and device drivers, and then provides HTML results that show which APIs are being called that are no longer supported in CE 6.0, APIs that are only supported in the kernel, and APIs that may not be supported in the future.

Sue Loh: Windows CE - Analyzing Physical and Virtual Memory Usage Using Control Window Commands

mikehall — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 04:10:23 GMT

Sue Loh, Software Design Engineer on the Platform Builder Remote Tools Team, demonstrates how to look at virtual and physical memory usage on a device using control window commands. In this hands-on demonstration, Sue uses the Target Control Window to examine memory usage, and explains how to read memory dumps.

Windows CE Collecting Thread Data Without Remote Kernel Tracker

mikehall — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 21:42:21 GMT

Sue Loh, Software Design Engineer on the Platform Builder Remote Tools Team, will show how to collect CeLog threading data without a connection to Remote Kernel Tracker. This is a core method for collecting performance data on a standalone device. Sue will also show how to look at the data using a command-line parsing tool, readlog.

Windows Embedded CE - Understanding the Primary OEM Performance Tools

mikehall — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 21:33:22 GMT

Sue Loh, Software Design Engineer on the Platform Builder Remote Tools Team (Diagnostics), takes a look at the two most important performance tools for Windows CE OEMs: the kernel profiler and CeLog / Remote Kernel Tracker. In this talk it’s assumed the viewer is at least somewhat familiar with how to run the tools, the video will focus on understanding the relationship between the two.

What’s New in the Windows CE 6 Beta Platform Builder Tools - Part 2

mikehall — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 21:25:36 GMT

Jonathan Lyons, Program Manager on the CE 6.0 Platform Builder IDE Team, gives an overview of the process of debugging an OS Design. Jonathan also uses the new Run-Time Image Viewer Tool to examine the files and registry keys included in an nk.bin file. He will also use the tool to compare two nk.bin files.

Revisiting WiMo - The Windows Mobile Robot

Rory — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 21:16:22 GMT

Brian Cross is, like, really smart. That's what I've decided.

He woke up one day and felt like building a robot...

...so he did.

He's come along way from his early attempts, and he now has multiple hardware platforms which all tie into a single brain. That brain is a Bluetooth-enabled Windows Mobile SmartPhone. There's also some stuff that runs on a PC which was built with some of the Robotics bits that are available with Microsoft Robotics Studio.

Brian uses the phone to direct the actions of the robots, as well as handle things like communications and image acquisition (yeah - these robots, like the various probes we've launched into space, like to send images back).

I was floored by what I saw. And, for those of you who like what you see here, Brian has posted directions on the official WiMo site which describe how to build a robot similar to the one you'll see in the video.

It's amazing what you can do with a computer, a phone, and a couple hundred bucks nowadays.

What’s New in the Windows CE 6 Beta Platform Builder Tools - Part I

mikehall — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 19:40:48 GMT

Jonathan Lyons, Program Manager on the CE 6.0 Platform Builder IDE Team, will walk you through the process of bringing up an OS Design for a device, adding an application, and customizing the application using the new Platform Builder Tools in Visual Studio 2005.

Driver Development and Much More With Mike Calligaro

Rory — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 00:38:37 GMT

Mike Calligaro came to Microsoft thirteen years ago to help build a supercomputer. But, two days before his arrival, the project evaporated, leaving Mike on the payroll but without a position.

This isn't an unheard of situation for new hires, but Mike's story, detailing all the different projects he worked on throughout the years, is just fantastic.

We get to hear about his work on the Sega Dreamcast, an early attempt at providing video-on-demand in the home (in 1994!), and the best explanation ever given as to what a device driver is and how they work.

I'm hoping to visit Mike again. I found him through some posts he wrote for the Windows Mobile blog. I found him to be thoughtful and interesting - he was the same in person. One of those hidden gems at the company.

He has more stories to tell, and I hope to get him to divulge more of his past for the camera. People like Mike impress me because of their ability to approach many different disciplines with great success.

This video, I feel, only scratches the surface...

A net-enabled Windows CE photo viewer

Rory — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 02:01:16 GMT

This is a sort of informal "Part Two" of the interview with Mike Hall and Derek Snyder.

In this short video, Mike Hall shows me a device that he built which was way too nifty to ignore. I was about to leave his office after the first part of this interview when I spotted it on his desk.

Mike let me stick around to check the thing out on camera.

Thought you might like to see it, too...

Windows CE, Windows XP Embedded, and Windows Mobile Explained

Rory — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 19:45:22 GMT

There's some confusion among geeks about what the differences are between Windows CE, Windows XP Embedded, and Windows Mobile.

In this video, I talk with Mike Hall and Derek Snyder about these differences, and what I got was a crystal clear explanation. Then Derek goes on to demo a few different Windows Mobile devices just for kicks. One of them was so cool that I actually grabbed it away from him. Yeah - it was that cool.

This is my first Channel 9 video to go up. Hope you like it

Bor-Ming Hsieh and Sue Loh: 3rd Generation Kernel for Windows CE

Charles — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 21:12:10 GMT

The upcoming release of Windows CE 6.0 ships with the 3rd generation kernel for the Windows CE operating system, Bor-Ming Hsieh and Sue Loh are developers on the Windows CE kernel who provide details of the major architectural changes to the kernel and memory model and how this affects Windows CE developers. Channel 9 correspondent Mike Hall conducts the interview.

Juggs Ravalia – Windows CE 6.0 Device Driver Model

Charles — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 21:06:48 GMT

The upcoming release of Windows CE 6.0 ships with a redesigned kernel, memory model and device driver architecture, Juggs Ravalia is a Program Manager on the Windows CE drivers team who gives us the low down on the new driver architecture and what that means for embedded device developers. Mike Hall, Senior Product Manager and Channel 9 correpsondent, conducts this interview.