WindowsCE.NET 4.1 Question | Tech Off

wolfgang_999

For a very long time i built Windows CE 4.1 applications on top of embedded VisualStudio 3.0 and 4.0 for a x86 thin client target
platform.

Now my question: is it possible to use Visual Studio for building this applications? I cannot choose the x86 target platform to build just the native ARM platform.
Is there a way to do so?

Many thanks for replies!
wolfgang

RichardRudek
So what do you expect for nothin'... :P

I think the answer to that is no.

Check out the [CE Developer wiki]

wolfgang_999

Well thank you a lot that confirms my worries Sad

All the Best
Wolfgang

RichardRudek
So what do you expect for nothin'... :P

Yeah, from what I understand, VS2005 can be used to upgrade eVC 3 and 4 projects, but only for targets of CE 5.0 and above, [as described here].

Whether you can repurpose the binaries produced for CE 5.0 for use back on CE 4.1, I have no idea. But like you, I was only able to select ARM CPU's. I suspect that's because I need to install the appropriate CE SDK (Platform Builder, etc), as opposed to just the SmartDevices SDKs.

From what I understand, VS2003 did allow CE targets such as 4.1, but only with managed (.NET) code, and not for native, C++.

If I was in your situation, I'd probably look at using addons for the old (VC6-based) eVC IDE such as [Visual Assist X]. I used to use their older product on VC6, and loved it.

But then again, I don't know what your motivation is to move to VS2005...

wolfgang_999

Well i think we all agree that developing with evc3 and 4 is a pain in the a... and the support for the new Mobile platforms since 5.0 is not given for evc any more.

So i thought to move to VS to develop native apps and test it against the old and the new platforms 5.0 and 6.0...

But by the way i think that there must be a way to build for Windows CE 4.2 on x86 within VS just because a vast number of thin clients such as the HPt5000 series is out in the market.

RichardRudek
So what do you expect for nothin'... :P

wolfgang_999 wrote:
But by the way i think that there must be a way to build for Windows CE 4.2 on x86 within VS just because a vast number of thin clients such as the HPt5000 series is out in the market.

Oh targeting x86 I believe is simply an issue of setting up the appropriate targets.

From what I understand, you just need to install the appropriate CE SDK. That is, the CE SDK (proper) adds these x86 targets. But I don't have any old versions of Platform Builder, so for me, that would mean reverse engineering the way the freely available mobile/smartdevice SDK's do this, and then hacking the setup. The existing x86 compiler should be fine.

I'm sure most of this would be documented in the Visual Studio API, which the last time I looked into, was known as (or related to) VSIP, and needed some qualification.

Anyway, if your (microsoft-speak) 'pain-point' is the refactoring and intellisense, then look into Visual Assist. A quick troll of their forums shows that a number of people do have it working with eVC 4.