Quite a few customers have been trying to use the Microsoft Fingerprint Reader with their Embedded runtimes, or create a componentized version of the driver. Componentizing this driver is quite a challenge – one we have hopefully alleviated for you. We tackled the task of creating a component for you, which can be downloaded from here . As we do not own the binaries that ship with this hardware...

As part of an ongoing effort on the Windows Embedded team, our management encourages us to seek out new relevant devices to our industry to get a chance to understand these new devices and see how our products may apply. One of these new gadgets that I felt would apply was the Asus EEE PC ! After ordering one, and patiently waiting, it has finally arrived! I’m going to use the steps in my previous...

Back in the fall of 2007 (see the comments from ShermB and me on this blog ), or even earlier back in 2005 (see this blog from Andy), we were talking about making a Windows XP Embedded hobbyist SKU for our hobbyist community. It still hasn’t happened yet given all the complications surrounding this product. (You can find the general Windows Embedded hobbyist program “SPARK Your Imagination”...

Introduction A non-administrator user logs in to a system built with Windows XP Embedded runtime will not be able to successfully change the TCP/IP settings (such as IP address, subnet mask, etc.) even if that particular user belongs to the ‘Network Configuration Operators’ group. The system will require a reboot after changing the TCP/IP settings; however the new settings will be discarded after the...

The procedures below are copied from the xpehelp.chm to configure USB Boot on XPe in the Feature Pack . I'm copying them here to give me an easy to reference URL when people asking for help. You can download the updated help files for the new technologies from the Connect site along with the disk.iso. - Andy To boot XPe from USB, format the USB media, build the USB bootable image, and transfer...

When I read something like “the clock interval… for most x86 multiprocessors is about 15 milliseconds” I’m compelled to determine the value of my clock, or “tick”, interval. Fortunately, the book I read this quote in, Windows Internals Fourth Edition provides a reference for helping me with my affliction. The author, Mark Russinovich, of the aforementioned book has graciously made the utility...

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 for Windows® XP Embedded Service Pack 3 is now available on the ECE. This update should not be used with any other operating system. On March 25, 2010 Microsoft announced a revised policy around support for .Net framework 3.5 SP1. With that change the support for .Net Framework 3.0 and 3.5 ends on April 12, 2011 - customers are strongly recommended to migrate to .Net...

If you missed the Embedded Systems Conference in Silicon Valley this week, you also missed an industry address from Kevin Dallas, the General Manager for the Windows Embedded group. In that address, he highlighted three new offerings related to Embedded, that aligned with our commitment of delivering a Windows Embedded Software + Services platform for connected experiences. These new offerings are...

I was reading OS News this morning and came across an interesting article from Linux-Watch . It's the " Top five things Linux can learn from Microsoft " by Steven Vaughan-Nicholas . I wasn't quite sure what to expect at first, but it's insightful and after seeing MSDN as #1 on his list it's obvious he 'gets' it. It's about the developers, developers, developers (youtube video) - Andy

I received some great information last week with regards to the product lifecycle of XP Embedded from one of our Product Managers, Nic. I thought I would pass on the info to you, along with examples to illustrate different situations. Thanks, Nic! ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Windows XP Embedded support...

HORM does not stand for “Ham On Rye (with) Mayonnaise”. It is an acronym for “Hibernate Once Resume Many”. Why would you want to “hibernate once, resume many”, you ask? Well….allow me to tell you. This feature allows a rapid reboot and return to the same hibernated image over and over again. Much different from the way you typically use hibernate mode on shut down with your desktop. With your desktop...

Faced with 11 000+ components in Target Designer it can be daunting to figure out which of these have configurable settings. Those are settings that can be tweaked in Target Designer before the runtime image is ever deployed to a device, which speeds up setup and customization of the device somewhat. The following list is all the components in XPe SP2 that can be configured by clicking on the component...