All those Windows Mobile users waiting for Windows Mobile 7 are going to have to wait a little longer, but at least now they’ll have something to keep them busy while they wait. Next month, Microsoft is reportedly planning to unveil Windows Mobile 6.5 and accompanying services at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, which is taking place between February 16 and 19.
I am much more interested at the core changes in 6.5 (if any). as the WinCE base is a great code base and an awsome hoby OS (or desktop OS if you have enough time on your hands to create it).
the code base changes from WinCE 5 to WinCE 6 were huge! Some System components (such as filesystem, gwes, device driver manager) have been moved to the kernel space.
The system components which now run in kernel have been converted from EXEs to DLLs, which get loaded into kernel space.
New Virtual Memory Model. The lower 2GB is the process VM space and is private per process. The upper 2GB is the kernel VM space.
New Device Driver Model that supports both User Mode and Kernel Mode Drivers.
The 32 process limit has been raised to 32,768 processes.
The 32 megabyte virtual memory limit has been raised to the total virtual memory (Up to 2GB of private VM is available per process).
The Platform Builder IDE is integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, allowing a single development environment for both platform and application development.
Read-only support for UDF 2.5 filesystem.
Support for Microsoft’s upcoming exFAT filesystem.
802.11i (WPA2) and 802.11e (QoS) wireless standards, and multiple radio support.
New Cellcore components to enable devices to easily make data connections and initiate voice calls through cellular networks.
and so on… more info here https://forums.symantec.com/t5/Mobile-Wireless/Windows-CE-6-The-Impr…
if those kind of changes are going into version 7 of WinCE I am going to be thrilled (not those changes specificly, as they were done in 6, but the amount of GOOD changes like that). hmmm i think i will do an article on WinCE “Desktop OS, if you dare”
Edited 2009-01-20 19:11 UTC
poundsmack commented…
Correct me if I’m wrong, as it has been awhile since I bothered to mess around with a WinCE\WinMo device and things may have changed since then…but isn’t the greatest obstacle to using WinCE\WinMo as a desktop OS the requirement of recompiling everything for X86? Or assuming use of one of the various ARM or MIPS processors available trying to find new applications for such? As far as I can tell, these days only ARM gets any real support when it comes to applications and applications are seldom supported for very long or with any assurance of support between various releases of WinCE\WinMo.
I’ve always thought it was a mistake for Microsoft to not have released a kit of some kind allowing people to upgrade their own devices to whatever level of OS they could support, rather than depending on hardware manufacturers who generally abandoned the devices in favor of churn. Seriously what genius thought that churn was the way to go with devices that cost over $500.00 USD??
I hope you do do that article and include a ton of howto advice so we can follow along at home…
–bornagainpenguin
Edited 2009-01-20 21:51 UTC
since x86 is nativly suported you just have to make sure there is a board support pachage for teh mobo you want to use (i recomend VIA as they haev had great board support for CE). I will do a pretty indepth “how to” including porting .NET apps to it. but yes you have to comile against any target, but its not to bad. as of version 6 its MUCH easier. one other cool thing is that WxWidgets and QT are supported on WinCE now
Edited 2009-01-20 21:55 UTC
poundsmack informed…
That’s good news–anything that extends the already way too short lifespan of WinCE\WinMo is a good thing in my books. Looking forward to your article when it comes out. Hmm…not that I’m unhappy with my current Ubuntu install (works great at the moment) but what do you think would be the difficulty in getting my ASUS EeePC 901 up and running in WinMo just for the hell of it?
–bornagainpenguin
here is a great place to get started http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/embedded/aa731407.aspx
(other usefull resources: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/embedded/aa714506.aspx
and :http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/embedded/aa714516.aspx )
it would be tricky but not imposible. while there is no precompiled BSP (board suport package) avalible the chipset is suported by Intel ( http://www.intel.com/design/intarch/swsup/graphics_faq.htm )for Windows Ce 5.0 and 6.0. So it could be made to work. would everything work? not likely, wireless internet could be an issue but it might be fine. actually since it uses the Atheros AR5BXB63 for wireless you would be in luck, http://www.intelligraphics.com/atheros/windowsce.html
but as far as free drivers go for it I dont know. I would need to do more research. Personaly I go with VIA as they have the best BSP’s for WinCE.
For anyone getting into it I recomend going here ( http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/products/spark/defau… ) and using the VIA board (link at the bottom of the page). its a great way to get into it. ( http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/embedded/artigo/ )BSP for that one found here ( https://store.viatech.com/store/showOrderForm.action# )
Edited 2009-01-21 22:32 UTC