.NET Compact Framework Team : Announcements

Power Toys for .NET Compact Framework 3.5 have been released

daniel.horbatt — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:12:00 GMT

The Power Toys for .NET Compact Framework 3.5 have just gone live at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C8174C14-A27D-4148-BF01-86C2E0953EAB&displaylang=en. If you downloaded a previous version, you might want to upgrade as there have been several bug fixes and improvements made to several of the tools.

What’s New

Many here are likely familiar with Remote Performance Monitor which shipped as a part of .NET Compact Framework 2.0 SP1 and the Heap Viewer extension that shipped 2.0 SP2. This time we’ve added the CLR Profiler based on the desktop tool, NetCF SVCUtil for making it easy to consume WCF services on device, and the App Config tool for creating config files on the fly. We’ve improved our remote tools platform to make it significantly easier to use: client side tools components now deploy automatically so tools “just work”, everything works with emulators and a common device manager UI is provided to keep tabs on all your remote devices.

Comprehensive documentation for the tools is now also provided out of the box in the form of a chm file.

The Tools

NETCF CLR Profiler – CLR Profiler is an instrumenting allocation profiler for NETCF applications. It provides detailed allocation visualizations, allocation callstacks and other views of the managed heap for diagnosing various memory management issues.

NETCF ServiceModel Metadata Tool – The .NET Compact Framework ServiceModel Metadata Tool (netcfsvcutil.exe) allows you to generate a Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) client proxy to help developers consume WCF services on device. Like svcutil.exe, which is the desktop version of the utility, netcfsvcutil.exe is a command-line tool that generates service model code from metadata documents and generates metadata documents from service model code.

App Configuration Tool - On-device tool for specifying what version of NETCF an application will run against (ie. Create config file), displaying installed versions of NETCF and displaying info about DLLs in the GAC.

Remote Logging Configuration Tool– The Logging Configuration Tool enables users to easily configure logging options on a NETCF device including: loader, interop, network, error and finalizer logs. (used to be a part of RPM)

Remote Performance Monitor and GC Heap Viewer – Provides real time counter data (ranging from Garbage Collector activity to type loading info) on a running NETCF application. The GC Heap Viewer feature allows you to capture the managed heap at any moment your app is running to view live references, and allows you to compare multiple snapshots to find memory leaks.

NETCF Network Log Viewer – A utility for viewing NETCF network log data.

Other Notes

Steven Pratschner has a few links to some overview on the tools here: http://blogs.msdn.com/stevenpr/archive/2007/12/10/powertoys-for-the-net-compact-framework-version-3-5-now-released.aspx.

Enjoy!

Power Toys for .NET Compact Framework 3.5 CTP Released

NetCFTeam — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 03:04:00 GMT

The Power Toys for .NET Compact Framework 3.5 CTP (September 2007) has just been released as an MSDN download.

This was originally slated to be released with the Core .NET Compact Framework, but was spun off as a side download.

Included in this release:

Remote Performance Monitor and GC Heap Viewer – Provides real time counter data (ranging from Garbage Collector activity to type loading info) on a running NETCF application. The GC Heap Viewer feature allows you to capture the managed heap at any moment your app is running to view live references, and allows you to compare multiple snapshots to find memory leak issues.

NETCF CLR Profiler – CLR Profiler is an instrumenting allocation profiler for NETCF applications. It provides detailed allocation visualizations, allocation callstacks visualizations and useful for diagnosing memory management issues.

App Configuration Tool (NetCFcfg.exe) - On-device tool for specifying what version of the NETCF runtime an application will run against, displaying installed versions of NETCF and displaying info about DLLs in the GAC.

NETCF ServiceModel Metadata Tool – The .NET Compact Framework ServiceModel Metadata Tool (netcfsvcutil.exe) allows you to generate a Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) client proxy to help developers consume WCF services on device. Like svcutil.exe, which is the desktop version of the utility, netcfsvcutil.exe is a command-line tool that generates service model code from metadata documents and generates metadata documents from service model code.

Remote Logging Configuration Tool – The Logging Configuration Tool enables users to easily configure logging options on a NETCF device including: loader, interop, network, error and finalizer logs.

NETCF Network Log Viewer – A utility for viewing NETCF network log data.

Announcing .NET Compact Framework 2.0 SP1 Beta1

NetCFTeam — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 22:30:00 GMT

The .NET Compact Framework team has been working on a service pack for .NET Compact Framework 2.0. The fixes and features included in this beta have been driven through customer feedback we receive through the Product Feedback Center, Newsgroups and Forum posts. To get started using .NET Compact Framework 2.0 SP1 beta download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6548dd53-a418-42d9-a481-19ba3ceca1a6&displaylang=en

Below is a raw list of features and bug fixes.

New Features

Support for WinCE 4.2. For more information see Richard Greenberg's BLOG.
Allow GAC to be installed to Storage Card.
Allow DataGrid cell drawing to be overridden.
Enable .NET Framework SDK Debugging via MDBG.
Include Network Log Viewer.
Include .NET Compact Framework Remote Performance Monitor. For more information see Steven Pratschner's BLOG.
Support Headless WinCE 5.0 Devices. For more information see Mark Prentice's BLOG.
Add the [Serializable] attribute to better facilitate serialization extensibility and code portability.

Bug Fixes

The list below contains only our internal titles for the bugs, so it is not too descriptive. But, hopefully this list will help you determine whether you may have run into any of these issues in your code. In the future, we hope to provide more detailed descriptions of these issues.

Access violation accessing .Controls or .Controls.Count property of a control once it has begun the disposing process

AppCompat - MS Pocket Expense Logon Screen disappears before you can logon

Breakpoints don't work if the "cached" managed dlls in "bcl" directory differ from the ones on the device

Can't get CF 2.0 to install on Wizard (Cab Install failure on low memory device)

Close button doesn't terminate the netcflaunch.exe process

COM Interop: VARIANT_BOOL is passed incorrectly on ARMV4I.

Compact framework 2.0 Debug.WriteLine not functioning

DataGrid formatting support

DateTime.Now throws ArgumentOutOfRangeException

Error getting v2 on device via ActiveSync push

FileStream finalizer will cause app crash, if previous IO operation failed

Fix Com marshaling memory leaks

Http Abort semantics fixes

HttpWebRequest over SSL with payload over 32K hangs on the client when SendChunked is false

HttpWebRequest: ArgumentOutOfRangeException on accessing https://www.cybertrust.com/

HttpWebRequest: NullReferenceException on multithreaded WebRequest scenario with abort

HttpWebRequest: Uncatchable ObjectDisposedException on exiting app with asynchronous requests

icordbg av when exception occurs when native thread calling back into managed code generates an exception

icordbg: Remove RemoteDeviceConnection10 / RemoteDevicePort10 / TransportStream10 classes

Implementation of BindingList class is obsolete (about 6 months old), prevents major data binding scenarios from working.

Installer should check for ActiveSync version and disable deployment if prior to AS 4.0 build 4343.

Magneto PPC requires cabs built with new version of Cabwiz to eliminate "... previous version..." warning message

MIPS JIT can't handle branches to destinations farther than 256mb away

PInvoke return types of UIntPtr throw a NotSupportedException

Regular Expression that worked in 1.1 doesn't work in 2.0

ResourceManager.CreateFileBasedResourceManager() throws ArgumentException when the base name ends with ".resources"; Desktop doesn't

SerialPort: IOException is thrown on opening serial port on IPAQ 4150

SerialPort: Uncatchable exception when Bluetooth is turned off

SerialPort: Virtual serial ports are not reported in SerialPort.GetPortNames()

sometimes a p/invoke call that uses the Win32 FindWindow function to get a .NET CF Window’s window handle will fail.

SP1 - Changing VT_BYREF Variants in Managed Code Can Lead to a Memory Leak

Submitting batch update throws NullReferenceException w/ OutputParameters and multiple batches of updates

[Edit: Fix formatting]

Error #4 when installing .NET Compact Framework version 2?

NetCFTeam — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 20:51:00 GMT

We have had a number of reports regarding error #4 when installing version 2 of the .NET Compact Framework on some devices. To address this issue, we have updated the current install package. Please see Mark Prentice's post describing the update.

Take care!

[Author: David Kline]

Disclaimer(s):
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

.NET Compact Framework releases 1.0 SP3

NetCFTeam — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 02:28:00 GMT

The .NET Compact Framework team has completed and released v1 SP3. This servicing release responds to customer bug reports and feedback. Our team worked hard to fix issues which either caused data loss or were not easily worked around by a developer, see the list below.

SP3 has been delivered to multiple release vehicles to service several sets of customers.

End users will find a Web download which provides NETCF for use in RAM.
Those building WinCE device images using Platform Builder 4.2 and 5.0 will find QFE’s which update the NETCF catalog to SP3.
SP3 has also been included in the latest update for Windows Mobile Second Edition.

SP3 Ship Vehicles:

Web download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?amp;displaylang=en&familyid=a5a02311-194b-4c00-b445-f92bec03032f&displaylang=en
WinCE 5.0 PB QFE 041201_KB890061 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=49711f58-1d6c-4629-93c6-7a5cff3ceeae&DisplayLang=en) Watch for this to be rolled up in the quarterly QFE
WinCE 4.2 PB QFE 041119_KB888235 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e0e66c77-dee2-4aba-9623-a3bfff434b5c&DisplayLang=en) Watch for this to be rolled up in the quarterly QFE
WinCE 4.1 QFE will be delivered at customer request.

SP3 Bug Fixes:

- Transitions between managed and native code can cause memory leaks on ARM platforms.
- A NullReferenceException is thrown when a Web Method returns an empty array using the xsi:Nil attribute.
- Modifying the SoapClientMessage.ContentType property does not modify the Http requests ContentType header.
- Stack corruption can occur on SH, MIPS and x86 platforms when local variables are created but never used.
- Invoking a multicase delegate from a catch handler throws a MissingMethodException on SH, MIPS and x86 platforms.
- Command line arguments containing double byte characters are truncated to a single byte.
- An ObjectDisposedException is thrown when a asynchronous web request is aborted before the response is received.
- Invoke on a disposed control hangs the application.
- Any array containing one or more elements is not sent to the Web Service correctly.
- An application may hang when invoking a Web Method that uses multiple XmlElementAttributes on a single argument, member or property.
- Memory corruption can occur on devices that have the native security model enabled and both .NET CF V1 SP3 and a pre-release version of .NET CF V2 installed.
- Deadlocks can occur when running under severe resource constraints.
- Tool Bar's on Windows Mobile 2003 SE no longer lose their images when removed from the form.
- An uncatchable ObjectDisposedException is thrown when the server closes the socket connection.
- Setting the Minimum and Maximum properties of a progressbar no longer crashes the application.
- Unexpected exception while adding an image to an imagelist on an Hx4700 and hx4705.
- Data Misalignment occurs on Decimal fields in MIPSIV devices.

- Data is missing or loaded incorrectly by DataSet.ReadXml()

Thanks!
.NETCF Product Team

[Author: Mark Prentice]

Disclaimers:
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Some of the information contained within this post may be in relation to beta software. Any and all details are subject to change.

Got feedback for the .NET Compact Framework?

NetCFTeam — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 18:16:00 GMT

The NetCF team is looking for feedback from developers using the .NET Compact Framework for consideration in future releases. We've got lots of ideas and are looking to focus on what's important to our customers.

To submit your feedback, email it to: SDWISH@microsoft.com.

If you have feature requests and/or feedback, we'd love to hear it and feed it back to the product team for future consideration.

A few examples of feedback we're particularly interested in:
1. specific feature requests for classes and api's
  a. include a typical usage scenario, why it's important to you
2. show us what you've built with .NETCF!
  a. send a link to your application's web page
3. what sort of general sample code would be useful?
  a. I would love to see more examples showing ...
  b. I'd like to see a white paper describing how ... works

We value all your submissions, but unfortunately won't be able to respond directly.

Thanks!
.NETCF Product Team

[Author: David Kline]

Disclaimer(s):
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.