Building a Picture Frame with Windows CE 5.0 - Step 1 | Tech Off

The Channel 9 Team
5 guys from Redmond

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This is the first in a series of videos that will show you how to build a Picture Frame device running the Windows CE 5.0 operating system.

We've divided the project into the following four steps:

Boot and run the Windows CE operating system in the Windows CE Emulator, use a custom "Picture Frame" skin on the emulator, display images from a shared folder on the desktop PC
Expose a file share from the Windows CE Emulator image, allow users to drop images into the folder and have these displayed in the frame
Expose Web Services on the Windows CE Emulator that allow desktop applications to register images to be displayed on the picture frame
Move the Windows CE image to "Real" hardware - we will be using the ICOP eBox II reference board, $195.00 - - The board can be ordered from Samuel Phung.

You will need the following to complete the first step you will need the Windows CE 5.0 Technology Preview, a Custom Emulator Skin and Instructions for installing the skin.

The Channel 9 Team
5 guys from Redmond

Here's what the CE based Picture Frame will look like.

Pete
Last Tango J105

This is really cool.

Great work Mike!

androidi

Props on the good video and sound quality, better than on most of the MSDN TV / webcast. BTW what was the machine being used? It seemed slightly laggy for being a "standard issue" 3ghz HT machine of today.

Andy914

Trying to follow along...

When I get to the end of the new platform wizard, I get a messagebox saying that the driver resolver is not available in this release - see the release notes for more detail. There are no devices in my workspace window.

In the release notes, I was able to find the following:

Driver resolver not available
Driver resolver functionality is not included in this Macallan beta.

To manually add drivers to your OS design, open the Platform Settings dialog box, switch to the Environment tab, and enter the relevant BSP environment variables.

Drivers are normally brought in by platform.bib or common.bib. Examine these files to help determine which dependant drivers should be included.

Right...that explains it <g>

Now, how do I go about getting the appropriate device drivers into my workspace? Was there something I needed to set up beforehand to get the right ones automatically copied, or do I need to copy them in manually? If I need to copy them in manually, which ones do I need?

mikehall
Mike

We were using a desktop PC running Camtasia to capture the output from an RDP connection to my Toshiba M200 laptop. This seems to work quite well when recording demos and slides - Camtasia capture the output to an AVI at 1024x768, the MS-Studios team then convert to 800x600 WMV 100k and 300k format.

- Mike

mikehall
Mike

ok, so I'm using a later build of Windows CE 5.0 than the Technology Preview which is downloadable from the web <g>

You should be able to add the drivers manually from the catalog - I'm just installing todays build of Windows CE 5.0, once that's complete I will give you the location in the catalog and the drivers that need to be added.

- Mike

ZippyV
Fired Up

Can MSDN universal subscribers get a full version of that embedded system/program instead of the trial-version?

mikehall
Mike

Windows CE and Windows XP Embedded full product are only available through the distribution channel - to get more information about how to purchase the full product please read the following... - http://msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/howtobuy/default.aspx

Would you say that 120 days isn't long enough to evaluate Windows CE ?

- Mike

ZippyV
Fired Up

Would you say that 120 days isn't long enough to evaluate Windows CE ?

>Sure it's long enough but now that I have an MSDN universal subscription I still don't get every tool from ms that I could need as a developer.

WinInsider
Mike, MCAD

Mike, instead of using Camtasia, why not use Windows Media Encoder 9, it comes with Screen capture capabilities, and you don't have to store chunky AVI file.

Mike
WinInsider.com

mikehall
Mike

Camtasia is used by Microsoft Studios to record the sessions, I'm not sure why they are using this rather than Windows Media Encoder - I'm assuming WM Encoder writes directly to WM9 format, right ? - I'm not sure what software Studios use to edit the videos, it could be this needs AVI format, I will ping the producer to see if they've thought about this - and will have a go at recording Step2 of the video using Windows Media Encoder...

- Mike

Andy914

I'm just installing todays build of Windows CE 5.0, once that's complete I will give you the location in the catalog and the drivers that need to be added.

Have you forgotten about this? Or perhaps just having trouble finding the time (perfectly understandable)?

a2ps

nice work

busted

Waiting with baited breath for part 2. Wink

busted

martindolphin
Martin

You inspired me to try making my own:

http://www.martindolphin.co.uk/dotnetblog/

StephenN

agreed, can't wait for part 2! I have my [very] old laptop ready to butcher. Downloaded Win CE yesterday and played around with it. Trying to find out how to push the binaries to the actual photoframe/laptop. Time for a spell on msdn I think.

embguy

I am not able to install the win ce 5.0 evaluation software. I downloaded the installation package from microsoft site. All the minimum requirements are met. But it is showing this error- The installation package could not be opened. please verify the package exists and you can access it-.can anybody help.

Shrage
Let's Tallk

mikehall wrote:
We were using a desktop PC running Camtasia to capture the output from an RDP connection to my Toshiba M200 laptop.
- Mike

What's an RDP connection

Shrage
Let's Tallk

Hi, WinInsider thanks for the information about Windows Media Encoder 9, i d'l it and i love this feature, aspecialy thay it's free Smiley

vimkar

great job

Gidion2k4

Always cool to come accross this project again Smiley

I love it. But the question that comes to mind (that's why I'm posting and I hope somebody might read it) is what possibilites there are to keep a project such as this running more than 120 days.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the tools and the image expires after 120 days? Ok, that's not nice but it's understandable *g*. Further up there is a link to the licensing stuff.

Ok, the $995 for the development tools are way out of reach for private/student projects. But the $9 or $16 per runtime license sound ok - if they actually sell them a single licenses (which I don't believe, but I'll just assume it - because you could always group up a bunch of people and buy the minimum amount of licenses).

But, the question is, can I use an OS image from the development eval kit with a real (bought) runtime license and so make it run way after the 120-days?

If not, what are all you guys doing CE projects out there doing? Do you keep downloading the eval kits and rebuilding os images?? I'm keen to know...

ZippyV
Fired Up

The images don't expire.