Visual Studio For Devices : Author: Amit Chopra

VS 2005 SP1 is now available !

MobileDevGroup — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 02:14:00 GMT

Yes VS 2005 SP1 is now available for download. Here are some useful links I wanted to share.

VSTS patches download	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bb4a75ab-e2d4-4c96-b39d-37baf6b5b1dc&DisplayLang=en
Express patches download	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7b0b0339-613a-46e6-ab4d-080d4d4a8c4e&DisplayLang=en
TFS patches download	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a9ab638c-04d2-4aee-8ae8-9f00dd454ab8&DisplayLang=en
How to obtain VS 2005 SP1	http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=929697
Hotfixes in VS 2005 SP1	http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=918526
VS 2005 SP1 Release Notes	http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=928957
Heath’s blog with a ton of useful SP1 related information on install issues, install times, insights into how SP1 install works, etc	http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/tags/VS+2005+SP1/default.aspx

So as a device developer what should you expect ? Some big areas we touched upon were:

We Added Development Support for Windows Embedded 6.0 platform based devices
Ability to develop using SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition
Added 15 Device Side MFC Classes to MFC for Devices
Fixed issues with eVC to VS 2005 Migration Wizard
Updated to the latest Version of Device Side Native Compilers
Included the latest versions of the Windows CE Remote Tools

and many other bug fixes both from our team as well as other teams we work with.

Thanks

Amit

What versions of .NETCF will VS "Orcas Support" ?

MobileDevGroup — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 23:26:00 GMT

In the previous ship cycle, one feedback we got from our developer community was that we didn’t share early on what runtimes and platforms the development tool will support. So for VS “Orcas” release, I would like to share where we are heading in terms on enabling support for various runtime versions and platforms. This post is managed specific only for now, I put up a similar one for Native Development out soon.

Managed Development Changes and Enhancements.

- Add Support for V.Next of Compact Framework (V 3.0 or V 2.x as it finally gets versioned)

- Continue to support .NET CF Version 2.0

- Remove the templates for 1.0

o Your existing 1.0 Projects will be migrated to 2.0 (if you wish to use them in VS Orcas)

o Or you can continue to use VS 2005 side by side on the same machine to work with 1.0 applications

o Since Smartphone 2003 only supports NETCF 1.0, you will not see any project templates for that.

- Include the Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC and Smartphone SDKs in the Box so you have a first class out of the box experience

- Enable future SDKs from Windows Mobile team to install seamlessly on VS “Orcas” much like you install Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK today

- Add Managed Templates for next version of Windows CE (just the way CE 5.0 is supported today)

As we continue to hash these internally, I’ll provide updates as applicable. In the meantime, I would love to hear your feedback on these changes.

Thanks

Amit Chopra

You can email me at ACHOPRA AT MICROSOFT.COM

Creating Custom Controls for Microsoft .NET Compact Framework in Visual Studio 2005

MobileDevGroup — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 22:23:00 GMT

Here is the link to an article written by Xin Yan http://symbian.sys-con.com/read/113332.htm . A lot of you have asked questions on this area. This article will provide you with lots of useful information.

Thanks

Amit Chopra

Long time no Post...

MobileDevGroup — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 08:25:00 GMT

I just realised it has been a long time since I posted to our team blog. The last few weeks had been very hectic. I did a trip to India for a few weeks and did some presentations at TechED 2005 in Hyderabad and Delhi and met with some of the device developer in India. Since my last visit which was about 3 years ago I was amazed at the changes that has happened in all aspects of life. The one thing that got the most of my attention was the usage of Cell Phones - specially SMS in India. Even for the session feedback for my TechED Sessions there was a SMS number to send the feedback to :-)

Since my return it has just been about the 'End Game' - this is the time to put use that hard PM interviews questions we all PMs face - should we fix this bug or leave it ? Every call at this point of the ship cycle is hard. As we complete our test passes, the risk of introducing regressions is high but then at the same time we want to ship a very high quality product. So it takes a lots of extra investments in fixing, buddy testing and reviewing the bugs.

Other big thing at hand is getting ready for the PDC Talk next month. I'll blog more about that in my next post soon.

Sample code for the MSDN Webcast: Creating Custom Controls for Managed Code with Design Time Support in Visual Studio 2005

MobileDevGroup — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 18:48:00 GMT

A few day back Xin had presented a WebCast on MSDN Webcast: Creating Custom Controls for Managed Code with Design Time Support in Visual Studio 2005. The demo code and additional information can be downloaded from here.

FAQ:Remote Spy Error

MobileDevGroup — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 21:28:00 GMT

If you try to use Remote Spy that shipped with Beta 2, you will get this error

The specified service does not exisit as an installed service.

There is a bug in Beta 2 that prevents Remote Spy from working. No workaround at this point.

Thanks

Amit

FAQ:Where are the setup logs stored ?

MobileDevGroup — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 20:09:00 GMT

If you have run into any setup failure, the first thing you should do is save the logs. The Logs for Visual Studio 2005 are stored in the following place. In addition to this, if the Device Emulator setup failed or you are getting that Virtual Machine Network Driver is not installed then you aslo need the following log file %windir%setupapi.log

dd_depcheck80.txt – located in your %temp% directory

dd_vserror80.txt – located in your %temp% directory during Visual Studio .NET setup; moved to the Logs directory in the path that you installed Visual Studio .NET to after installation; left in %temp% after a failed installation and after uninstallation

dd_vsinstall80.txt – located in your %temp% directory during Visual Studio .NET setup; moved to the Logs directory in the path that you installed Visual Studio .NET to after installation; left in %temp% after a failed installation and after uninstallation

VSMsiLog****.txt (where * is a randomly-generated suffix) - located in your %temp% directory during Visual Studio .NET setup; moved to the Logs directory in the path that you installed Visual Studio .NET to after installation; left in %temp% after a failed installation and after uninstallation

For setup issues you can use the Product Feedback Center to logs your bugs or use the setup forum to disucss other issues.

Thanks

Amit

FAQ:I just install Beta 2 (after un-installing the previous version) ...

MobileDevGroup — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 04:30:00 GMT

And I get one of these these errors:

"The system cannot find the path specified." or

"Cannot connect to device 0x80070003" or

The Smart Device Smartphone Package ({CC199C95-8D28-4A1D-B4BC-760E4E4CEE5B}) did not load because of previous errors. For assistance, contact the package vendor. To attempt to load this package again, type 'devenv /resetskippkgs' at the command prompt.The Smart Device Pocket PC Package ({FD2CE8C9-6B0F-44C1-BE80-9CCB59B26EE3}) did not load because of previous errors. For assistance, contact the package vendor. To attempt to load this package again, type 'devenv /resetskippkgs' at the command prompt.

The most likely cause of this are DataStore Entries left behind that don't get removed as part of un-installation. Do Make sure you back these up before you do this. There could be other reasons for these failure that may need more investigation but so far the resolution below has helped.

Close Visual Studio 2005 if it is running.

open "%USERPROFILE%\local settings\application data\Microsoft\CoreCon\1.0

Remove all the files in this folder.

Restart VS and try to create a device project. If bad datastore was the issue, your problem will be fixed.

This procedure is only applicable for machine on which a previous version of VS 2005 (beta1 or ctp) was already installed.

Thanks

Amit

FAQ: Where are the remote tools ?

MobileDevGroup — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 21:26:00 GMT

Beta 2 of Visual Studio does include the Remote Tools though they don't show up in the Visual Studio IDE. To get to them go to Start->All Programs->Microsoft Visual Studio Beta 2->Visual Studio Remote Tools and all the Tools are listed there.

You can also add them to the Tools Menu in Visual Studio. This can be done selecting Tools Menu inside Visual Studio, then Selecting External Tools.

In the External Tools Dialog, Select Add. For the new Tool select the ... for Command and browse to <Program Files Folders>CE Remote Tools->5.01->Bin

There are 6 tools listed there and you can select them and add the ones you use the most to the Tools Menu.

Amit Chopra

FAQ:I get the error -Connection failed. The current version of ActiveSync is not supported. Install the latest version from www.microsoft.com

MobileDevGroup — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 20:44:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2, will not work with Version 3.7 or 3.8 of Active Sync. We are in the process of making a later version available shortly and as soon as the download sites has it, I will update this page from where you can download it.

Thanks

Amit Chopra

We are looking at second week of may to have a developer preview pack for Active Sync 4.0 that will fix this issue.

Brand New but Still Limited Microsoft Mobile and Embedded DevCon Registration Offer!

MobileDevGroup — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 21:36:00 GMT

This offer will not hold for long ! So pls register as quickly as you can !

Based on the success of our last promotion, the Microsoft MEDC team have kindly extended a special offer to blog readers. The first fifty people to sign up for MEDC 2005 using the RSVP Code CAATTAR get an extra $100 off our Early Bird price of $995. A total savings of $300!

Of course, they insisted we insert some marketing blurb as well!

Join us for Mobile and Embedded DevCon (MEDC 2005) May 9–12, 2005, at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Don’t miss this premiere opportunity to share and learn more about the latest Windows Embedded and Windows Mobile platforms.

Attend MEDC 2005 to:

Hear from Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates.
Learn to streamline device development with Visual Studio 2005.
Hear from the experts on building .NET Compact Framework applications.
Learn best practices for debugging every stage of your Windows CE device.
See how Microsoft deploys its Corporate Windows Mobile Architecture.
Discover how to get ahead faster through Microsoft partner programs.

Visit the content site to see all the great sessions that will be at MEDC!

Limited Microsoft Mobile and Embedded DevCon Registration Offer!

MobileDevGroup — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 03:43:00 GMT

** This offer is now closed ** Please visit www.medc2005.com to Register for MEDC.

Our friends at Microsoft MEDC team have kindly extended a special offer to the VSDTeam blog readers. The first sixty people to sign up for MEDC 2005 using the RSVP Code CAATTAT get an extra 10% off our Super Early Bird price of $795. A total savings of $480!

Of course, they insisted we insert some marketing blurb as well!

Attend MEDC 2005 to:

Hear from Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates.
Learn to streamline device development with Visual Studio 2005.
Hear from the experts on building .NET Compact Framework applications.
Learn best practices for debugging every stage of your Windows CE device.
See how Microsoft deploys its Corporate Windows Mobile Architecture.
Discover how to get ahead faster through Microsoft partner programs.

Feb CTP and Device Development

MobileDevGroup — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 18:27:00 GMT

If you are a device developer (or evaluating device development in VS 2005) please continue to use the November CTP for that. Information on November CTP and the patches needed is also in given our blog below.

Thanks

Amit Chopra

Visual Studio 2005 and developing for CE based devices

MobileDevGroup — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 20:04:00 GMT

A number of people have been trying to get this information on newsgroups and other means so I thought it would be nice to put a blog to provide an answer to CE support question.

VS2005 will support both Managed (VB,C#) and Native Development (C++) for devices. We support Windows Mobile 2003 and 2003 Second Edition for Pocket PC and Smartphone out of the box and also support development and debugging on CE 5.0 based devices. For customers developing with on previous CE platforms such as 4.1 or 4.2, eVC will continue to remain the recommended development platform.

Thanks

Amit Chopra

VS2003 and Device Development

MobileDevGroup — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 01:06:00 GMT

This came up on one of the C# Frequently Asked Questions site where a customer was unable to determine if the standard SKU for Visual Studio 2003 supported Device development or not.

Smart device development is available in all editions of Visual Studio .NET 2003: Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional, Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Developer, and Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Architect. Smart device development is not available in stand-alone editions: Visual Basic .NET 2003 Standard, Visual C# .NET 2003 Standard, Microsoft Visual J#™ .NET 2003 Standard, or Microsoft Visual C++® .NET 2003 Standard. http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/productinfo/overview/whatsnew.aspx

For Whidbey (Visual Studio 2005) the Standard Edition will also provide full device development in Native (C++) as well as Managed (VB .NET and C#). The express SKUs however will not have this functionality.

Thanks

Amit