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Visual Studio 2008 Shipped! (What does that mean for Embedded?)

Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 (and the .NET Compact Framework 3.5) has shipped - more information is available on Somasegar's blog.

What does this mean for Embedded developers? - Let's take a look at this in "size" order.

  • .NET Micro Framework - The .NET Micro Framework development tools are currently at version 2.0 SP1, these require Visual Studio 2005 SP1 to work - the .NET Micro Framework development tools do not work with Visual Studio 2008.
  • Windows CE - There are two parts to the Windows CE story, the first is operating system development, the second is application development.
    • Operating System Development - The Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2 tools are a plug in to Visual Studio 2005 - the plug in doesn't work with Visual Studio 2008 - This means that operating system configuration, build, download, and Debug requires Visual Studio 2005 SP1 to work.
    • Application Development - Visual Studio 2008 ships with "Smart Device" support, this means that you can develop native and managed applications in Visual Studio 2008 that target a Windows Embedded CE and Windows Mobile device. The same process of device authentication exists from Visual Studio 2008, so you will still need ConManClient2, and CmAccept running on your embedded target before deploying an application. I will write up some steps to integrate .NET Compact Framework 3.5 into a Windows Embedded CE 6.0 image...
  • Windows XP Embedded - Windows XP Embedded can be considered to be a componentized version of Windows XP, this means that any technologies supported by Windows XP "desktop" will also work with Windows XP Embedded. At this time the .NET Framework 3.5 isn't componentized, this means that you would need to either manually integrate the framework with your operating system image, or install the framework on your embedded device - This may also need a blog post to explain the steps...

- Mike

Posted: Monday, November 19, 2007 9:49 AM by mikehall

Comments

Unhappy Customer said:

Yet again, Microsoft is being backwards with their software.

They create new software that is never compatible with anything.

When PB 5.0 came out, it didn't work so well with Vista or VS2005 until VS2005 SP1 + Update came out.

Now that PB 6.0 is out, it doesn't work with VS2008, which isn't THAT different from VS2005.

You're just making it impossible to have a stable development environment, because one needs a multitude of computers with lots of combinations of OS+Tools.

# November 19, 2007 8:52 PM

bkchung's WebLog said:

Visual Studio 2008을 위하여 수십개의 팀에서 쏟아져나온 수백가지의 새로운 기능들을 일목요연하게 정리한다는 것은 쉽지 않은 일일 것입니다. 그래서 각각이 정리한 새 기능들

# November 20, 2007 12:22 AM

Noticias externas said:

Visual Studio 2008을 위하여 수십개의 팀에서 쏟아져나온 수백가지의 새로운 기능들을 일목요연하게 정리한다는 것은 쉽지 않은 일일 것입니다. 그래서 각각이 정리한 새 기능들

# November 20, 2007 1:22 AM

Unhappy customer said:

And yet again, Mike Hall ignores criticism and comments unless they are kiss-his-behind posts.

# November 20, 2007 2:18 PM

mikehall said:

Unhappy Customer: Sorry for the delay in adding a comment, I've spent more time offline than online over the last day.

I personally think its important to let you know what the current situation is rather than you having to find out that there's an issue with mixing development tools - I hope you agree.

Windows XP Embedded developers don't have an issue with using Visual Studio 2008 to develop applications since XP Embedded is a componentized version of Windows XP.

So what about Windows CE? - Visual Studio add-ins are not compatible across versions, that means that the Windows Embedded CE 6.0 plug in for Visual Studio 2005 isn't going to work with Visual Studio 2008. The CE 6.0 full product ships with a full version of Visual Studio 2005 Professional, so you get all of the tools needed to configure, build, download, and debug a CE 6.0 operating system image.

You can use VS 2005, or VS 2008 to develop applications for the CE 6.0 operating system image.

- Mike

# November 20, 2007 10:22 PM

Kamran Shahid said:

Is .net compact framework 3.5 released with vs2008 is Final version ?

# November 21, 2007 5:07 AM

Mike said:

yes, this is the final version of the framework.

- Mike

# November 21, 2007 11:13 AM

Werner said:

Hi Mike,

You state "You can use VS 2005, or VS 2008 to develop applications for the CE 6.0 operating system image."

I just installed VS2008 RTM. The first thing I tried to do is to create a C++ smart device application. Big disappointment, I could not do this; it is not in the File | New | Project | Visual C++ list. I tried reinstalling my own CE6.0 image SDK, but no luck either.

What is wrong? Do I need to install more to be able to create new C++ projects (or convert the once I built with VS2005)?

Werner

# November 21, 2007 3:40 PM

Alex said:

Hi Mike,

sorry but your answer shows exactly the problem for us.

Why MS did not plan a WCE 6.0 plug-in to be released for VS2008?

Now our costumers will start to develop applications using VS2008 and we don't have any other choice as having to have VS2005+WCE 6.0 plug-in and also VS2008.

# November 22, 2007 5:10 PM

mikehall said:

Werner,

I've just installed VS 2008 on the same laptop as VS 2005 and the CE 6.0 development tools.

If I select File | New | Project

and then browse to Visual C++ | Smart Device

I can see the following project types.

* ATL Smart Device Project

* MFC Smart Device Project

* Win32 Smart Device Project

* MFC Smart Device ActiveX Control

* MFC Smart Device DLL

- Mike

# November 26, 2007 1:25 PM

kuki said:

Hi, Mark

I meant to use vs2008 to develop a Float point test program to run on my WINCE6.0 platform.

But I installed my CE6.0 platform sdk, vs2008 can't recognize it. I use the default pocketpc 2003 emulator. And turned on the /QRfpe switch. The command line is as follows:

/Oi /Ot /GL /D "_DEBUG" /D "_WIN32_WCE=0x420" /D "UNDER_CE" /D "WIN32_PLATFORM_PSPC" /D "WINCE" /D "DEBUG" /D "_CONSOLE" /D "ARM" /D "_ARM_" /D "_UNICODE" /D "UNICODE" /Gm /MTd /Gy /fp:fast /GR- /Yu"stdafx.h" /Fp"Pocket PC 2003 (ARMV4)\Debug/testfloat.pch" /FAs /Fa"Pocket PC 2003 (ARMV4)\Debug/" /Fo"Pocket PC 2003 (ARMV4)\Debug/" /Fd"Pocket PC 2003 (ARMV4)\Debug/vc80.pdb" /W3 /nologo /c /Zi /TP /QRarch5 /QRinterwork /QRfpe

But I saw the asm that it built out, the VFP instruction is not generated. Where is the problem?

# November 27, 2007 12:35 AM

Jose Galego said:

Have just installed VS 2008 in a laptop with VS 2005 and CE 6.0 and at the VC++/Smart Devices I have all the project types too.

# November 28, 2007 6:44 AM

Werner said:

Hi Mike,

The problem was I installed VS2008 Standard Edition. (VS2008 Professional RTM was not available the first day for MSDN subscriber download apparently).

After I reinstalled VS2008 Professional, all was fine.

Thanks anyway.

Werner.

# November 28, 2007 12:56 PM

Paal said:

Hi,

When can we expect a plug-in for VS2008?

# December 1, 2007 5:43 AM

Joey said:

I can't believe we are at RTM and there is not even a beta or mention of a plug-in.  With a launch date for CE6 R2 right at the same time as 2008 RTM its seems microsoft has missed the ball on this one.  Embedded development seems to be getting the back seat. Interesting.  Makes the CE6 R2 launch seem kind of a joke.

# December 1, 2007 7:26 PM

FranciscoJ.Arias said:

Hi everyone,

we recently moved to Visual Studio 2008 (windows vista) from Visual Studio 2005.

Before we were able to connect with "Windows Mobile 5.0 pocket PC device" in order to debug the application via wireless using CEDbgSetup program

opennetcf article: http://community.opennetcf.com/articles/cf/archive/2007/08/31/debugging-without-activesync.aspx

There isn't version for VS2008 so I'm trying to get connected with a Microsoft solution

We can connect using ActiveSync but the device has to be plugged in (that's a problem)

So, any help is welcome

Thanks a lot!

# December 5, 2007 4:14 AM

FranciscoJ.Arias said:

Solution was in front of me

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228708(VS.90).aspx

# December 5, 2007 6:29 AM

szcoder said:

How to use vs2008 to develop native programs for PocketPC 2003? There is no WM2003 SDK shipped with vs2008. Where can I download it? Thanks.

# December 15, 2007 7:07 PM

szcoder said:

Sorry for my mistakes. There is PocketPC 2003 SDK shipped with vs2008.

# December 15, 2007 7:58 PM
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