Welcome to MSDN Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

News

April 2005 - Posts

New XPe Glossary
Based on feedback received through the blog, I've posted a first stab at an article with a glossary of abbreviations, acronym’s , etc... We'll try to keep it up to date as we introduce new terms or abbreviations so we're not isolating the folks just now Read More...
New Arcom SBC
Found this press release/article on Arcom’s latest offering of Single Board Computers at WindowsForDevices . The latest boards run from 600MHz Celerons to 2.1GHz Pentium M with the i855 chipset. You can get it with firewire, giganet, CF capable of course, Read More...
Scoble interviews JimAll
Scoble interviewed Jim Allchin again for Channel 9 this week, this time they talk about TabletPC, WinHEC, Starving musicians, being an executive. Oh yeah, there's some Longhorn stuff in there too. Lots and lots of LH info. - Andy Read More...
Why the Monster QFE Packages?
In January we released the Beta version of the new QFE format. “Oh no!” I hear you say, “What do I have to do now to keep my database up to date?”. Well, the reasoning behind the change is to make it easier for customers to keep their Embedded database Read More...
Componentizing Winamp – Pt 3.1
Here’s a thumbnail pic to a screenshot of Ashampoo’s Uninstaller. This is the screen that shows me the file resources that changed on the system between the two snapshots (pre and post install of the application). You may need to expand the window to Read More...
Componentizing Winamp – Pt 3
Now that we have captured the file and registry changes on an XP-Pro system from installing Winamp Lite, our next step is to get this information ported to Component Designer. In my case, the Ashampoo Uninstaller presents the data in two forms, one through Read More...
Componentizing Winamp – Pt 2
In this post I’ll walk you through the first phases of componentizing an application, in our case we’re doing something easy and starting with Winamp. There are several flavors of Winamp, for simplicity sake I chose “Winamp – Lite”. The version number Read More...
Componentizing Winamp - Pt 1
I'm going to teach you how to componentize third party applications. I'm all about the 'baby steps', so we'll start by setting our sights on something small like Winamp - Lite. We'll document the steps, the trials and tribulations of the process, if I Read More...
FBA Regmigrate Key
There exists a key under the FBA key (HKLM\System\ CCS\ Control\ WindowsEmbedded\ FBA) called the RegMigrate key. This key can be found in the registry under HKLM\System\FBA\RegMigrate. All the sub keys under this key will be migrated to their corresponding Read More...
USB Flash Drive Round up at Ars Technica
Found this in-depth round up comparison article of USB Flash Drives by Ars Technica via /. They put the following USB Flash devices/Thumbdrives through the paces (weird that they don't have M-Systems ): Apacer Handy Steno HT203 Transcend JetFlash DSC Read More...
What does FBA taste like?
First Boot Agent (FBA) is Embedded's version of XP setup. It performs runtime tasks like PNP enumeration, DLL/COM registration on the target system. FBA is a collection of tasks that are run at specified phase during the setup. These tasks are stored Read More...
Networking tips for your runtime
Here are some common networking issues that come up every now and then in XPe runtime. Most networking problems come up due to missing components in the runtime, so here are some quick tips and solutions that should help. How to specify a static ip address Read More...
Surgical removal of Q890175
In January we released the Beta version of a new QFE format ( Q889402 ). This format was basically a rollup of all previous SP1 security QFEs. For the same month we also released the security QFEs in their previous format ( Q890175 ), with the idea that Read More...
Get your snakeoil here and fix all your Codepage problems
Same thing I discussed yesterday about the Fonts issue applies to CodePages as well. Click this link to download a zip called “Just_CPs”, use it as a troubleshooting tool when text is not being displayed correctly in your third party apps or control panel Read More...
Lotsa Fonts
If you follow the XPe newsgroup you’ve seen the issue again and again. A company has a custom app or control panel applet they’re componentizing and everything seems fine except for a pesky little issue with the displayed text. Displays fine on Pro, but Read More...
New Downloads section of the blog
A new section on the left of the blog has links to the downloads we'll be providing. Called "Download Goodies Here!". - Andy Read More...
Bargain Basement prices for 1GB CF
This is for the hobbyists out there. I found an advertisement for CFs through GeekNews . Apparently, NewEgg has 1GB Kingston CF cards for $41.99, Good grief! (Link forwards you to TechBargains.com) Come on now, with cheap gigabyte CF cards, is footprint Read More...
Get VS2005 Beta 2!
In case this is your only source of information off of MSDN (yeah right) or you haven't seen the great news, VS 2005 Beta 2 is now available! Go here to get Beta2 . Also, check out Soma's blog entries on the Whidbey announcement and his explanation on Read More...
Microsoft Tips Plans For Longhorn Embedded?
"Tips Plans"? Um, whatever; here's an article from TechWeb that tries to decipher some of our comments in yesterday's online chat. Made the internal MS newswire's top headline, good grief. Mike Hall has an additional discussion about it here as well , Read More...
EWF errata
#1. In the Help documentation released with XPe SP2 and on the MSDN web page there is a typo in the section called “ Configuring EWF RAM Reg Mode ” that may be causing some confusion. The user is instructed to add a number of registry keys, however one Read More...
COA, PIDs, Huh?
I was just perusing the newsgroups and i see this age old question come up again which was answered by Gordon Smith (another of our superhero eMVPs). Man these MVPs are coming out of the wood work now, god bless 'em! <grin> Basically the Q&A Read More...
I'll show you mine if you...
How did you think that title would finish? Anyways, as i mentioned the other day I've got components we use internally for testing and i'll show you some of them, hopefully this will encourage more people to share their component packages with the rest Read More...
MSDN Chat Reminder for Thursday
This is just a reminder that there is a "Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2" chat tomorrow morning, from 10-11a.m (PT) on 4/14/05. Come join the product team in the MSDN Chat room, and send us your questions as we talk about all aspects of XPe SP2. See Read More...
Got OSS embedded components?
What's the coolest app or driver package you've componentized? I've done some AntiVirus programs (Kaspersky & FPROT) as proofs of concept before CA released their componentized version of eTrust. Some testers in our lab a couple years ago created Read More...
Novell jumps on the POS bandwagon
Looks like Novell is jumping on the Point of Sale bandwagon with a new offering, it's called Novell Linux Point of Service 9. If I'm reading the press release correctly it appears they're leveraging SUSE Enterprise Manager on the backend part of a package Read More...
Component VSGuids and VIGuids
If you’ve ever created a component in Component Designer you may have seen in the Advanced properties that there are two identifiers for the component, a VIGUID and a VSGUID. Most people are familiar with the concept of a GUID being a unique identifier Read More...
Preparing an Embedded Runtime with both System Cloning and El Torito
This question came up in the Embedded newsgroup a while back, and since then I've been interested in finding the answer. Here's the scenario: Say you have a number of computers that you want to boot from CD (via El Torito), and all of these computers Read More...
Interview with an XPe customer considering a switch to Linux
David Berlind is an editor at ZDNET (links to his blog) and he’s posted a podcast interview of one of our XPe customers as part of David’s ‘IT Matters’ series. The podcast is a 20+ minute Q&A with Miles Wade and it’s provided me with a perspective Read More...
Longhorn LUA Links
As you're probably aware there's lots of goodness going into Longhorn , it's far from being a minor upgrade over XP. While we wait for the LH Beta I'll whet your appetite for information by pointing out some publicly discussed items that may seem intuitive Read More...
Wind River’s Linux transformation
Stephen Shankland over at CNET has good article/interview, this one on “ Wind River’s Linux transformation ”. He interviews the relatively new CEO of Wind River Ken Klein. Ken appears to be saying the right things to try to get his company back on track Read More...
Smaller than Nano-ITX? Sheesh.
Check out VIA’s latest form factor – ‘ Luke ’ - with the latest Via Eden proc. This is apparently even smaller than the nano-ITX form factor, the miniaturization process is now taking them beyond board-level to silicon-level innovation. Of course it has Read More...
Come visit the Embedded team on campus during WinHEC
Are you visiting Seattle for the WinHEC conference April 25-27? Are you an XPe customer, partner or eMVP and interested in meeting with the product team outside of WinHEC one night? If you answer yes to both of those, let’s get together when you’re in Read More...
All abooooard! We're talking trains with XPe.
I stumbled on this cool article/interview by John Dodge at EDN about the GE (GE Transportation) and the Electro-Motive Division unit of GM (General Motors) locomotives being pulled into the digital age with more sophisticated computer monitoring systems Read More...
Is your job easier or harder with 10,000 components?
Is your life as an Embedded developer truly better off with a thousand windows feature components and 9,000 driver components? In NT4 Embedded there were about 250 components. With XP Embedded we gave you 10,000. Immediately after shipping the product Read More...
The rumors were true: Windows Embedded + Apple team up!
[edit 4/2/04. In case you're a day late or viewing this through Google/MSN cache, this was an April Fool's prank] Windows Embedded and Apple team up to componentize MAC OS X . WindRiver cries foul! You probably saw the announcement already but in case Read More...
Page view tracker