Dave Baker's WebLog : XP Embedded

MSDN Embedded Subscription Announced

davbaker — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:44:25 GMT

To help you deliver their next generation of embedded devices successfully, we have announced the availability (as of July 1) of Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition with Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Embedded subscription. This provides a cost-effective way to license the entire line of Windows Embedded platforms and tools, receive technical support, and obtain early access to the latest Microsoft updates and resources.

The MSDN subscription includes the Visual Studio suite of software development tools and the following Windows Embedded platforms and technologies:

Windows Embedded CE,
Windows Embedded Standard,
Windows Embedded NavReady 2009,
Windows Embedded POSReady 2009,

MSDN Premium subscribers will also have access to the resources in MSDN Embedded, enhancing their existing MSDN investments.

MSDN Embedded subscribers will also have exclusive access to a new developer service called Windows Embedded Developer Update. This new service will deliver the latest technology from Microsoft and trusted 3rd parties directly into the Windows Embedded development environment. The service integrates a client on the developer’s machine to a cloud service hosting the content, such as Microsoft product updates, advanced technologies, trusted 3^rd Party drivers, and board support packages (BSPs).

Visual Studio Professional 2008 with MSDN Embedded is scheduled to be available in July 2009; the Windows Embedded Developer Update service is scheduled to launch in the first half of 2010. Developers can obtain a subscription or find out more information on the Windows Embedded resources available through MSDN by visiting http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded. A comparison of MSDN Subscription options is available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/subscriptionschart.aspx.

Further details can be found here

Latest XP Embedded Online Chat Transcript Available

davbaker — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:46:42 GMT

The June 12th XP Embedded Chat transcript is available on MSDN.

The chat, covers a number of topic areas including XP Embedded "Update Rollup 1.0", Windows Media Player 11 componentisation, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) availability and what the team is working on for the future.

The transcript can be found here.

Under the Covers - Querying the XP Embedded Repository

davbaker — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:34:57 GMT

Every considered that, in certain circumstances, it would be useful to query the XP Embedded repository directly rather than using the Target Designer or Component Database Manager?

If you simply want to find out which components contain a particular file (e.g iexplorer.exe) you can use the following query:

SELECT    ExtendedProperties.StringValue, ComponentObjects.DisplayName
FROM       ExtendedProperties INNER JOIN
               ComponentObjects ON ComponentObjects.ComponentID
               = ExtendedProperties.OwnerID
WHERE     (ExtendedProperties.StringValue LIKE 'iexplore.exe') AND
              (ExtendedProperties.ResourceTypeID = 1)
ORDER BY ExtendedProperties.StringValue

This will return about 8 or 10 hotfixes and service pack versions of the Internet Explorer components released over the years.

If however you wish to query for the owning components of files, then I recommend investing in Sean Liming’s toolkit that does a much better job at this, including finding reverse dependencies, owners of registry keys, componentising applications, etc…

Paris Techdays - Me, Mike and Olivier talk about Embedded...

davbaker — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:59:31 GMT

Olivier blogged about this a while back, but I came across it whilst I was pulling material together for MEDC. During the Paris Techdays in February, Oliver Bloch, Mike Hall and myself where interviewed about Microsoft Embedded technologies: Windows CE 6.0, Windows XP Embedded, and the .NET Micro Framework.

Don't be afraid the interview starts in French, all the technical bits are in English :)

XP Embedded Wiki Launched

davbaker — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 23:05:28 GMT

Check out the new XP Embedded Wiki here. The wiki is available for the entire XP Embedded community to share knowledge and expertise and by contributing you can ensure it thrives as a valuable and ongoing resource for Embedded developers.

Among the topics currently posted are:

Tools
Embedded Enabling Features (EEF)
Related Technical Resources
Getting Help
Community Resources

You will need to create a Channel 9 account in order to edit the site.

It's not what you've got, its what you do with it! Windows Embedded in the Enterprise - Free Webinar

davbaker — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:54:56 GMT

Embedded platforms are being increasingly used as part of enterprise solutions to help improve efficiency and drive down cost. If these type of solutions are of interest to you sign up for the free webinar "Windows Embedded Opportunities in Enterprise Organizations," will be held on June 28 at 8:00PM GMT. For further details and registration go here.

Using Driver Verifier to Test the Device Driver Quality

davbaker — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:39:18 GMT

Check out the great whitepaper on Windows for Devices where Windows XP Embedded team member Nick Nehrhood discusses a tool that helps developers assess the quality of device driver code.

In Part 1, Nick describes how to use the Verifier tool. In Part 2, which is coming soon, Nick will discuss what to do if Verifier reports a problem.

XP Embedded Feature Preview 2008, CTP Available

davbaker — Thu, 24 May 2007 20:18:54 GMT

Can't believe I forgot to blog about this. If you haven't done so already download and test the 2008 Feature Preview for XP Embedded.

The CTP offers a number of new and updated features, including Media Player 11, Internet Explorer 7, and .NET Framework 3.0, along with some bug fixes. Other new features being previewed in the CTP include RDP 6.0 (remote desktop protocol) and UDMF (user-mode driver framework). In addition to the new features, FP2008 also includes functional enhancements to the File Based Write Filter and to USB Boot.

To download

Use an Internet browser to visit the Microsoft Connect web site.
Sign in using a valid Windows Live ID.
Click on “Available Connections” in the left menu.
Scroll down the page until you see “Windows XP Embedded” and click Apply

Check out the XP Embedded Image Difference Engine

davbaker — Thu, 24 May 2007 20:01:30 GMT

The "Image Difference Engine" and "Image Difference Applier" tools help you identify and package only the changed or added files and registry keys. This allows for a field upgrade without having to redeploy a complete Windows XP Embedded with SP2 image. The tools can help determine and package smaller upgrades, including operating system security updates and hotfixes, configuration changes, third-party application updates, and line-of-business data.

The tool can be downloaded from https://www.microsoftoem.com/ (requires registration), and also the Mobile and Embedded Communications Extranet (requires a partner account).

Give your input on Windows Mobile and Embedded documentation

davbaker — Wed, 23 May 2007 22:11:13 GMT

The Windows Mobile and Embedded Content Publishing team wants to determine the and general satisfaction with, the currently available technical documentation, in order to help determine future improvements.

Unfortunately, no prizes, bribes, or T-shirts, just the satisfaction of helping to improve the technical documentation. The survey is here, and should only take five minutes or so to complete.

Securing the XP Embedded Platform - Paris TechDays Presentation

davbaker — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:41:00 GMT

For those of you who attended my session yesterday, many thanks, I hope it gave you plenty to think about... The slide deck I used is attached below, though in the interests of download speed I have removed a lot of the backgound graphics :) For those of you who couldn't attend, the presentation gave an overview of how to secure the XP Embedded platform through the use of custom shells, splash screens and User profiles. It also gave information on speeding boot time using Hibernate Once Resumes Many (HORM) along with implementation of Custom Shells and System Message Interception to catch and handle Windows System Messages automatically. Let me know if you have any questions

Windows XP Embedded, WEPOS and POS for .NET Live Chat, Jan 30th.

davbaker — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 12:10:00 GMT

The January chat is focused on the Point of Sale (POS) industry. This is your opportunity to give feedback and questions about Windows XP Embedded, WEPOS and POS for .NET. You will meet the Developers, Test Engineers and Program Managers, as well as some of our MVPs. I believe this month’s MVP is Sean Liming, author of Windows Embedded for Point of Service / POS for .NET Step-by-Step, so if you have any questions for Sean or the Embedded team sign up now at http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/.

Refactoring Components in Windows XP Embedded FP2007

davbaker — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:09:00 GMT

One of the key enhancements of XPe Feature Pack 2007 is the re-factoring of major components. Linda Allen has posted a great Whitepaper on the XPe Team Blog which discusses the varying ways to capitalise on these enhancements achieving varying degrees of reduction, depending on how much effort you're willing to invest.

http://blogs.msdn.com/embedded/archive/2006/11/07/working-with-re-factored-components-in-fp2007-part-1.aspx

Does Windows XP Embedded really need 10,000 Components?

davbaker — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 18:12:00 GMT

Andy Allred wrote a very interesting piece in the XP Embedded Team’s blog around componentisation and whether we really need 12,000 components.

Is there a better way? Maybe it makes sense to "group" features together that don't have a lot of dependencies on other features. For example, "Instead of having several dozen components that comprise the Audio stack, why not just group them together and call it the Audio Feature Component?."

Such a strategy might work out to a couple hundred feature groups, the downside being that there will be some "footprint hit" for users who don't need every feature of a group. The upside being that you can get the system up and running faster and with higher confidence.

Andy invites your comments. Swing on over to the Embedded Team’s Blog and let them know your thoughts. http://blogs.msdn.com/embedded/archive/2006/12/04/10-000-or-200.aspx?CommentPosted=true

Creating XP Embedded USB Bootable Images from Vista

davbaker — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 16:43:00 GMT

If you've tried creating USB Bootable XP Embedded Images from Vista then chances are you might have run into a couple of issues. The UFDPrep application that ships with Feature Pack 2007 was specifically designed to allow you to prepare USB media from the Windows XP Platform - simply because there was no other way of doing it!

If you wish to prepare your USB media from Vista you can use the built-in (and improved) DISKPART utility to prepare and format your media as follows:

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.0.6000

On computer: DAVBAKERM5

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt

-------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---

Disk 0 Online 93 GB 1273 KB

Disk 1 Online 75 GB 1081 KB

Disk 2 Online 1000 MB 0 B

DISKPART> select disk 2

Disk 2 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> clean

DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

DISKPART> create partition primary size=512

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

DISKPART> format fs=ntfs

100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully formatted the volume.

DISKPART> active

DiskPart marked the current partition as active.

DISKPART>

Obviously you will need to substitute the disk number, size and format with your specific information. The one thing to watch out for is that Vista’s DISKPART stamps the MBR so that it looks for BOOTMGR instead of NTLDR. So in order to boot, you’ll have to rename NTLDR in your XPe image to BOOTMGR.

Happy booting.