I’m a Program Manager (PM) on the Windows Embedded team and am in the process of investigating how our customers use Component Designer to help the process of building their images. Component Designer is a very versatile tool and I’d love to get some feedback on how you use it. This feedback will be invaluable in our future planning.
Some potential topics of interest are:
I’ve made a forum post here (http://forums.microsoft.com/embeddedwindows/ShowPost.aspx?postid=4298732&isthread=true&siteid=47) if you’d like to have this discussion in a public forum. Alternatively, if you’d like to keep this information private, send mail to wecrt@microsoft.com and I will get in touch with you directly.
Thanks!
-Ben
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What do you componentized? Drivers? Applications?
We componentized our software package into groups: A "base" group of files that other components need, for example DLL's and registry entries. We also spilt off drivers and applications into groups, if a driver or application is not needed, it is not installed. We have over 60 components, and 6 macros.
Do you use macro components? What do you use them for?
We use macro components to allow the end user an easy starting point. For example, if the user is not constrained by image size it might be easier to add the full product. By adding just one macro component, they get all the needed part, and dependencies can be satisfied. The end user can always choose to exclude, in include components, but this allows them a quicker start.
Do you share components between developers on a single project?
One developer is responsible for the sld file maintenance.
Do you maintain versioning on your custom components?
We change versions along with our non-embedded product line. Component names and version strings are updated to reflect a new product version.
What do you love/hate about Component Designer?
As a tester, Component designer was great parsing 3rd party drivers into components that I can add to my database to satisfy the initial pmq file import.
I would love to see a "find" function in component designer. It is often difficult to locate a singe file when I’m not sure what component it is a part of. This is increasingly difficult now that our sld file has over 60 components. I often have to revert to opening the sld file in notepad++ and searching for the filename/registry entry, then finding what component it is under.
We have some components that require some manual configuration. Some windows components have a “Setting” web page; for example click Settings under the “Windows Logon (Standard)” component. In the right panel you can specify things like “Enable Legal Notice before WinLogon:” or set the default username.
We have been able to disassemble some of the asp and vbs files to give us enough information to create a "Setting" web-page that the user can input their configuration under. This is a very powerful part of the Embedded toolset, and I would like to see it documented and supported.