Microsoft says it has released its new embedded operating system for x86-based devices to product manufacturers. Windows Embedded Standard 2009 eschews Vista, instead combining Windows XP codebase updates with new versions of Internet Explorer, RDP (remote desktop protocol), Windows Media Player, and .NET, according to the company.
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Member since:2006-03-18
Christ on a bicycle. If the current Embedded XP codebase works, why fix something that ain't broke - especially in the embedded market?
Will they eventually get around to producing an embedded Vista (or more likely Embedded Windows 7)? - you betcha. It will just take time. In the meantime they continue to develop and sell a very stable, proven product based on XP.
Even if Vista had been everything everyone had dreamed it would be, even if it worked out of the gate with every piece of hardware, even if it delivered on all of it's promises flawlessly - the transition to an Embedded Vista still would have been difficult.
Member since:2005-07-06
Most of all, what these morons ignore is that most Vista enhacements are completely useless for an embedded platform which is essentially a single-user (and often single-task) machine.
The overhead needed to implement those extra layers of security is mainly a waste of time on a memory- and CPUspeed-constrained machine.
Member since:
2005-07-13
this really is a solid product that you can do pretty much anything with. its light on recourses (depending how you configure it) and can be used from simple embeded scenarios to building an OS as your gaming machine and having a base install of 300 megs or less (with full gaming capability).
Edited 2008-10-16 22:31 UTC
Member since:2005-09-21
Why would you care about the hard drive footprint of Windows on a gaming machine? Most modern games use several gigs of space each. The footprint of Windows is completely irrelevant, especially with 500GB hard drives to be had under $100
This would be useful on a first gen netbook like the EeePC 701 though. Even on the newer models I doubt it would be worth it. Better avoid the potential hassle of missing a component and stick with regular XP.
Member since:2007-04-23
Member since:2006-04-10
Member since:2005-07-13
you dont need all the services. and for some of us early addopters who have a high preformance laptop with only a 32 or 64 gig SSD driver space is everything. Also its not because it was neccessary, but it was because it could be done. and just like anyone here who has tried really alternative OS's (syllable, SkyOS, etc) its not for the reason of need, but more importantly its the desire to try something new. after all is it wasnt for that mind set there would likely be no linux 
Member since:
2005-08-07
I understand the Windows Embedded stuff is all intended to be used by corporate admins and OEM rollouts, but I can't help thinking Microsoft has made a mistake by not offering a version of these technologies for the home user and hobbyists market.
Sure there are other options available like BartPE or nLite but those are third party tools that provide an imperfect solution to the problems they address and often have limitations the official tools lack.
I wonder how many hobbyists have looked into the hoops required to jump through for both the official tools ($995 USD for the developers tools and an additional $90 USD per device) and the third party tools and have decided instead to go with Linux as the more robust and easier solution?
--bornagainpenguin
Member since:2005-07-06
[QUOTE]
I understand the Windows Embedded stuff is all intended to be used by corporate admins and OEM rollouts, but I can't help thinking Microsoft has made a mistake by not offering a version of these technologies for the home user and hobbyists market. [/QUOTE]
No, no, I'm sure it's quite intentional. They want to make sure people keep buying Vista and machines preloaded with Vista since they earn more $$$ per copy sold.
With any luck Newegg will let you get an OEM copy anyway if you really want one.
Edited 2008-10-17 15:33 UTC
Member since:2005-08-07
Moochman explained...
I guess this is why I'm a geek... I just don't see how the money benefit trumps the coolness factor of being able to show off machines that can boot in nearly instant and use less memory to run the actual system. In fact I'd say being able to demo this type of thing would only help to increase sales...
Moochman pointed out...
Hmmm...you might be on to something there--I'll keep an eye out. Just because I'm happy with Ubuntu on my EeePC901 at the moment is no reason to keep an eye out for what else is available.
--bornagainpenguin
Member since:
2006-05-09
Member since:2005-08-07
ebasconp ponderedd...
Only if you want to spend over a thousand dollars for the privilege. The article says X86 is supported so I would imagine so long as you were willing to spend the money required and had driver support for all the hardware in the desktop you should be fine. Licensing is going to be a killer though...
--bornagainpenguin
Member since:2005-07-13
Member since:2005-07-06
As of my knowledge, you only need to install this stuff to customize your embedded system installation.
This is completely unneeded if you only need to develop *applications* for that system. Visual Studio already supports that and also supports testing your apps on simulators.
That's the reason why it is expensive: it is meant for system builders only.
As a sidenote, I understand that people would like to play with that and maybe there could be a few reasons to give that stuff away for a lower price but there would be very few cases where having that would matter (releasing various custom ROMs, for example, as it happens for Smartphones today)
I think most developers should focus on producing good apps instead of toying with systems which aren't very useful (most of them get customized by system builders anyway so you only risk to cook something which doesn't support full features of your system).
Apart of that, if you really want, you can obtain those modules very easily. And I admit that installing new ROMs on my phone has been quite fun sometimes ;-)
Member since:2005-07-13
as a developer, toying with as much stuff as you can only icreases your knowledge of components and operating systems and teh mechanics of those systems. making good apps is one thing (i develop primarily for QNX and WinCE, as well as standard windows and Unix), but if you dont familiarize yourself with the environments in which you will be coding for it limits the quality of your code ot the compiler you use and your limited knowedge of the OS.
example, if i didnt tinker so much with it, i wouldnt have found out that i could use it as a desktop OS with everything i need and notihng i dont that boots in under 12 seconds once the computer passes POST and be able to use it on a computer that has as little as 128 megs of ram (as a desktop, the ram requirements go even lower depending on what you choose to inclode in your pachage). pleaying witht he OS to learn these kind of things give you better insite on how much system recources you have to play wiht, how effecient your apps have to be, how you till chose to code them, etc...
Edited 2008-10-17 15:44 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2006-10-31
So basically what I get from the article is this: MS took XP and slipstreamed SP3, IE7, Silverlight, WMP11 and the latest .NET framework. Then they replaced "XP" with "Embedded Standard" everywhere and replaced a couple of bitmaps and the screensaver that had the XP logo.
They might have gone as far as putting out a new UI theme so it doesn't look too much like XP but better than CE which I'm guessing sticks to the "Windows Standard" style.
Now they have a "brand new" OS for all those devices that run on intel atom. So they can still quit supporting XP and push for Vista on the desktop; while competing with linux on anything not beefy enough to run Vista.
Smart move... You'd think that people would see right through it; but looking at the previous posts here, some people already want to try it on their desktop! I've got news for those people: if you already have a fully updated XP, you already are running WES! Congratulations!
Member since:
2008-10-17
Windows Embedded Standard is a componentized version of Windows XP for embedded developers. This allows developers to only use the parts they need from windows xp to deliver their products. So if their product doesnt need outlook express, it doesnt get it. This reduces the footprint so us embedded developers can fit the os and our software on only a small amount of disk.
Member since:2005-08-07
johndotcom said...
The funny thing, I remember Bill Gates solemly swearing under oath that every component in Windows was intergrated so deeply with every other component that to remove anything was to break Windows.
johndotcom said...
I'd love to know how this affects the other apps. Using your example Outlook Express, in nLite if I remove this I lose MHT support because removing OE removes compression library somewhere. Is this still the case with WES?
Not that it really matters given how the idea of MHT seems to have whithered on the vine....
johndotcom said...
This would have been nice to have during the browser wars, so I could have had just the browser I was actually using installed and not wasting hard drive space back in the days of 5GB hard drives...not to mention the system resources of having a web browser open all the time for file management and shell purposes!
--bornagainpenguin
Member since:2006-02-05
WinCE != Win95
iexplore.exe != explorer.exe
Member since:2005-08-07
google_ninja sniped...
No, WES = XPSP3
ProTip: Sometimes reading the fine article is helpful in avoiding these embarrassing misunderstandings...
google_ninja sniped...
LMAO! Are you sure about that? Do some research about the earlier days of IE integration, and come back!
--bornagainpenguin
Edited 2008-10-18 13:47 UTC
Member since:2006-02-05
Yes, but a highly modified XP SP3 is still not windows 95, which is what he was talking about. Since then, they have spent a lot of time and effort modularizing stuff for exactly this reason.
LMAO! Are you sure about that? Do some research about the earlier days of IE integration, and come back!
Windows explorer and internet explorer are pretty much just a collection of COM objects (think KParts if you are a kde guy), and most of those bits are used in both other internal apps, or as components in third party apps. If you just yank them all out, there are alot of things that just wont work.
What those lite guys did is made stub objects that just returned nothing. That is an approach that will work, but you are still going to get a lower quality of experience due to having empty boxes show up in applications. What the wine guys do to get around this problem is create a com object that acts the same, but just uses mozilla to render web pages.
Anyways, all that to say that you do not have a full web browser loaded when you are using your file browser, but you are using components from it.