Visual Studio For Devices : FAQs

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

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.

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

What tools do I need to develop for Pocket PC and Smartphone?

MobileDevGroup — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 17:34:00 GMT

Robert's posted a nice little write-up over at the Windows Mobile blog on the different tools available for developing apps on Pocket PC and Smartphone devices. This is a bit of a tricky subject, since depending on the release of Windows Mobile you're targeting the tools can be quite different. His chart helps clear things up.

If you're looking for download locations for the various tools and SDKs you can find all of them at the Windows Mobile Developer's Center at MSDN. The Tools and Downloads page has direct links for everything Robert mentions.

Of course, the coolest tool on the block is Visual Studio 2005, which includes support for both native and managed Windows Mobile development. If you have a Beta 1 CD from one of our events and haven't given it a try yet please do! Don't forget to submit your feedback using the Product Feedback Center. If you don't have a CD kicking around, or you want the latest and greatest, and you're an MSDN Subscriber you can download the Beta 1 Refresh directly from the Visual Studio site.

[Author: Neil Enns]

Forceful home screens on Smartphone devices

MobileDevGroup — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 23:54:00 GMT

Another great question from the Smartphone developer newsgroup today. The gist of it is: "Why does the Smartphone home screen pop in front of my application every 10 minutes, and how can I stop it?"

The Smartphone Home screen pops forward after the device hasn't detected any user input for 10 minutes. (The length of time can be configured in the home screen control panel). Why? Because the device is primarily a phone, and the home screen is where you have to be to dial. The assumption is that if the user hasn't touched the phone for a while, it's likely in a pocket or a purse and the next time it's whipped out for use it'll either be to place a phone call or to run an app, both of which require the home screen.

99% of the time this works great, but there are certainly some applications where this doesn't make sense. A great example is Windows Media Player while it is playing a video. Since the user is watching the movie it would be rather rude to have the home screen pop forward.

To let the device know your app really is doing something that the user is watching, call the SHIdleTimerReset() function. The smallest timeout that can be set through the control panel is 10 seconds, so calling this every 9 seconds or so is generally a safe way to ensure the home screen doesn't pop forward. If you are going to do this, think long and hard about whether it is the right thing to do. Don't do it just because you think your app is important. Think very carefully about whether the usage scenarios for your application warrant this change to the standard Smartphone behaviour. Also, if you do call this, make sure you stop calling it when your application is no longer in the foreground, and don't override the home key so the user can still press it to get back to the home screen if they need to.

[Author: Neil Enns]

Windows Mobile Platform Migration FAQ

MobileDevGroup — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:58:00 GMT

MSDN has a new article up on migrating your application from one Windows Mobile version to another.

To ensure we are providing maximum information to our developer community, this article addresses a few of the most common issues and frequently asked questions (FAQs) around migrating between devices and platforms. We also provide an e-mail alias at the end of this article that you can use to report commonly-occurring issues so that we can add them to this FAQ.

This FAQ is targeted toward developers migrating from a previous version of Windows Mobile software or working to establish a single code base for all Windows Mobile-based devices.

[Author: Neil Enns]

Accessing Connection Manager through .NET CF

MobileDevGroup — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 21:14:00 GMT

Every so often someone asks on either an internal alias or our public newsgroup about the right way to establish a data connection using the Compact Framework. Most of the time you don't have to do this since many of the built-in classes will bring up the connection automatically, but sometimes it's necessary.

The API to use is called ConnMgrEstablishConnection(), and normally you'd P/Invoke to it to do all the magic. But there's a better way! The fine folks at OpenNETCF.org have a complete class library for interacting with Connection Manager as part of their Smart Device Framework. You can use the library to not only open or close connections, but also to listen for events like Connected, Disconnected, and ConnectionFailed.

[Author: Neil Enns]

Generating compressed CABs for Pocket PC and Smartphone

MobileDevGroup — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 19:28:00 GMT

At a partner event yesterday I was asked if it was possible to generate compressed CAB files for Smartphone and Pocket PC. It turns out the answer is yes and no.

All Smartphone devices support compressed CAB files, and cabwizsp.exe (the tool for creating Smartphone CABs) generates compressed CAB files automatically.

Pocket PC devices do not support compressed CABs. Cabwiz.exe, the tool for creating Pocket PC CABs, does not even implement creating compressed CAB files.

If you have one of the preview drops of Visual Studio 2005 you can use the new cabwiz.exe tool (this version works for both Pocket PC and Smartphone) that's in it to generate compressed CAB as well. To do so you have to add the /compress flag, as the default is to generate uncompressed CABs. These compressed cabs will work on all Smartphone devices, and Pocket PC devices running a future version of Windows Mobile (but none of the current ones).

[Author: Neil Enns]

Which CPU type for Smartphone development?

MobileDevGroup — Thu, 09 Sep 2004 22:22:00 GMT

Over in the news:microsoft.public.smartphone.developer newsgroup today someone asked a common question: "When I'm developing for Smartphone in eVC, which processor should I select?".

The answer is straightforward: ARMv4. All Pocket PC and Smartphone devices since 2000 use the ARMv4 processor. The only other processor you'd ever want to use is x86, and that's only if you're compiling your app to use in the emulator.

[Author: Neil Enns]

Access the HTC cameras from your app!

MobileDevGroup — Tue, 17 Aug 2004 16:52:00 GMT

One of the most requested features on the Smartphone developer newsgroups is for a camera API. We're working on one for the next release of Smartphone, but until then check out the new wrapper released by the folks at OpenNETCF.org. Neil Cowburn has a managed wrapper that works on any HTC device that has an integrated camera and the compact framework installed.

Nice job, Neil!

[Author: Neil Enns]

Programming against Windows Media Player on Smartphone and Pocket PC

MobileDevGroup — Tue, 03 Aug 2004 03:08:00 GMT

“Where are the APIs for programming Windows Media Player on Smartphone?“ This question has come up a couple of times in recent weeks on news:microsoft.public.smartphone.developer.

Unfortunately the answer is “there isn't one at the moment”. None of the Windows Mobile 2002 or 2003 devices, either Pocket PC or Smartphone, have a media player client that has an API.

The only workaround at the moment is to post window messages to the media player application. This is completely unsupported and is guaranteed to break in the next version of the client. However, if you really want to do it, Peter Foot has a writeup of how it works and a sample class library over at opennetcf.org. The library is in managed code, but if you're a native developer you should be able to look at the P/Invoke calls to figure out how to do the same thing in C++.

[Author: Neil Enns]