Moving forward to a new blog

Dear Readers,

I'm moving forward and opening a new blog  for Windows Embedded technologies.
The URL is : http://embeddingwindowssuccess.blogspot.fr/

- Nicolas

Windows Embedded Standard 7 for Application developers

You are application developer and want to know more how WES7 (Windows Embedded Standard 7) can fit your needs for your final product, then I would encourage you to attempt the webinars on that topic provided by Adeneo Embedded and Arrow Electronics here


- Nicolas

Windows Embedded products road map

Microsoft announces the Windows Embedded vNext products releases.
Check out Olivier's Bloch blog for details

- Nicolas

How fun is Windows Embedded Standard 7

The last release of Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard, is based on Windows 7 operating system, and devices will come to the market in the next days. So Microsoft is demonstrating the capabilities of this Operating System in an Home Entertainment context.



- Nicolas

Windows Embedded Standard 7 Compatible Applications

Most applications that run on Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP will run on Windows Embedded Standard 7. Through the use of templates, we now make it easy to ensure that all of your application development projects will run on Windows Embedded Standard 7. These templates allow an application developer to indicate which components should be included in the build in order to support their application on embedded systems.

Microsoft is providing for the most used applications, templates that you can use to integrate those apps in your runtime image. Check out the list here.
- Nicolas

Windows Embedded Developer Update

On June 28, 2010 Windows Embedded Developer Update for Windows Embedded Standard 7 users was made available for download. Windows Embedded Developer Update gives developers an easy method to discover, download and install updates, providing them with full control of their development environment and the confidence to know they've got the latest update.

• To download Windows Embedded Developer Update please visit the Windows Embedded Download Center


• For a video overview on Windows Embedded Developer Update visit The Windows Embedded News Center


• For more information on how to use Windows Embedded Developer Update visit MSDN

- Nicolas

Industrial Automation with Windows Embedded

With a single platform, one development environment, and real-time everywhere, Windows Embedded offers a reliable, flexible, connected, and cost-efficient foundation for industrial automation Learn during this presentation how the various Windows® Embedded operating systems can be used by OEMs to create industrial embedded devices. We will help you identify the key challenges for an Industrial Automation project and learn about available solutions, from the market trends, total cost of ownership and technical standpoints.

Online Webinars :

• French : November 17th 2009 10:00AM - 11:00AM (register)
• English : February 19th 2010 9:00AM - 11:00AM GMT (register)

Roadshow :

• Columbus, OH : October 21, 2009 8:00AM – 1:00PM (register)
• Boston, MA : October 27, 2009 8:00AM – 1:00PM (register)
• Mountain View, CA : November 12, 2009 8:00AM – 1:00PM (register)
• Houston, TX : November 18, 2009 8:00AM – 1:00PM (register)
• Paris, France : December 16, 2009 9:00AM - 3:00PM (register)

- Nicolas

Get an USB Flash key booting DOS

While using Windows Embedded CE or Windows Embedded Standard, you need to boot your device under DOS, in order to format, create partition on the storage, or to use loadcepc to launch your runtime image. Nowadays, floppy disk readers are vintage hardware that you probably don't have anymore, and more over Floppy disk are covered of dust and you are afraid to use them. In this case you have to boot your device using a USB Flash disk, thanks to the fact that most of the actual BIOS do support them.

Tools
- HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (http://hp-usb-disk-storage-format-tool.software.informer.com/)
- Winimage (http://www.winimage.com/download.htm)
- DOS floppy disk image (get from Windows Embedded CE 6 CEPC BSP)
%_WINCEROOT%\PLATFORM\CEPC\SRC\BOOTLOADER\DOS\BOOTDISK\DISKIMAGE\cepcboot.144

Extract the DOS image
For the first step we have to extract from the cepcboot.144 floppy disk image, the files for DOS. Using Winimage, open the image file, select all the files and go the Image->Extract. Enter c:\Temp\FloppyContent as a folder for the extracted files, and select "Extract with pathname" option.


Format the USB Flash disk
Plug the USB disk and wait for USB device availability notification.
Using the HP USB Disk tool, select the USB device in the list box, use FAT as File System, Select Create a DOS startup disk, choose "using DOS system files located at", and choose the folder used in winimage for the extraction.

Hit Start and voila your device is ready to boot dos. Then you can add the tools you need to prepare the device to boot...

Note
I have identified some USB devices that, are not compatible, cannot be used for booting x86 devices, but did not find the link between them.
This tutorial should also work with Compact Flash devices and SDCard (miniSD, microSD) devices.

Thanks to Eric for his help.
-Nicolas

Windows Embedded Standard 2011 (“Quebec”) CTP Available Now!

Article from Windows Embedded Standard blog by Shayna :

Have you been itching to get more information about what is coming next from the Windows Embedded Standard team? Well now is your chance! Earlier today we announced the release of a Community Technology Preview (CTP) for Windows Embedded Standard 2011 (this is the official product name of our next release that was code named “Quebec”).

To download the CTP simply go to http://connect.microsoft.com/windowsembedded and sign in with your Windows Live ID. If you haven’t previously participated in one of our CTPs, you will need to add the “Windows Embedded Standard” program to your Connection Directory. As you are playing around with the product please submit your bugs and suggestions using the Feedback forms on Connect, and you can chat with the rest of the community and members of our team on the MSDN forums specifically set up for Windows Embedded Standard 2011!

Unleash the power of Windows 7 technologies in Windows Embedded Standard 2011 using a solid platform that fits into existing customer infrastructure. To quote Kevin Dallas, general manager of Windows Embedded this “CTP empowers our worldwide ecosystem of OEMs, partners and developers to take advantage of the next generation platform’s enhanced Windows 7-based features and provide feedback, prior to its general release to manufacturing. We encourage the embedded community to take full advantage of the CTP’s availability and join in our excitement as we look ahead to the future availability of Windows Embedded platforms incorporating Windows 7 technologies.”

You’ll see lots more blog posts in the coming weeks covering various feature areas of Windows Embedded Standard 2011 – so stay tuned!

- Nicolas

Windows Embedded web cast and videos

Joe Broxon from Adeneo Corporation just release new web casts on the Windows Embedded Standard technology.
The first three are webcasts, they are all 100 level, but are a good explanation of some of the other embedded technologies from Microsoft besides Windows Embedded CE. Here are the links:

• MSDN Webcast: How to Tell If Your Project or Solution is "Embedded" (Level 100)
• MSDN Webcast: Windows Embedded Standard 2009 for Windows Developers (Level 100)
• MSDN Webcast: Windows Embedded POSReady for Windows Developers (Level 100)

- Nicolas

WES 2009 Installation Error

While installing Windows Embedded Standard 2009 you probably already experienced different errors.

• Error 1:
  An error occurs, but no details are provided, and the system revert the complete installation of the tools. In this case it means probably that the WES Iso access run into time out, really plausible while installing the tools through a network share. In this case, burn the DVD and restart installation.
• Error 2:
  After the tools installed, the installer is updating the content of the component repository. The repository is always located here \\device name\Repositories (where device name is the name of the host computer). This folder is a shared folder on the system and depending on the security settings on your computer this share can potentially write protected by default. For this reason installation tool is no capable to copy the files to the folder and you will have the following error message.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  To Fix this, simply change the share properties and it the retry button.
  

Hope this will helps you to install the tools :-)
- Nicolas

WES 2009 and WinPE scripting [updated]

Every time you use Windows Embedded Standard, you have to prepare the target hard drive to make it bootable and ready to receive the new generated WES image. In this case I'm using a customized WinPE 2.0 iso to boot the target device (tool retrieve from the Windows Automated Installation KIT or AIK).

Prepare Hard drive scripts :

• diskpart.script : this script will remove the existing partitions of the drive 0, and create a new one of 800 MB (in my case to leave empty space for the EWF feature)

list disk
select disk 0
clean
create partition primary size=800
select part 1
assign letter=C
format fs=ntfs quick
active
list part
exit

• prepdisk.bat : this script launch diskpart with the upper script in parameter, followed by bootsec to store the Windows XP boot sector.

@echo off
echo ---------------------------------------------------------
echo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! READ THIS CAREFULLY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
echo.
echo You are ready to erase the content of your hardrive
echo.
echo Do you want to continue - Press Ctrl + C to quit
echo ---------------------------------------------------------
pause
echo ---------------------------------------------------------
echo Are you really sure ?
echo.
echo Continue or Quit now by pressing Ctrl + C
echo ---------------------------------------------------------
pause
diskpart /s .\diskpart.script
bootsect /nt52 c:
echo ---------------------------------------------------------
echo               ==== Disk Ready for WinPE ====
echo ---------------------------------------------------------

- Nicolas

WES 2009, Virtual PC and Windows PE [Updated]

When experiencing Windows Embedded Standard, you need an x86 device to boot the OS. The first solution is to use a spare computer and deploy the Runtime image to the hard drive at every OS re-generation. Except if you are a skew driver fan, but mounting and unmounting the hard-drive to push the new binaries on the target, is quite painful after two or three manipulations. So another solution could be to use the current hard drive of your development computer, and reserve a partition for WES. In this case no screw driver is required, as the partition is visible directly under the OS of you development computer. The only restriction, in this case, is too reboot the development machine to get the WES OS booted. But this solution is also painful, as booting the development OS can take a while, and all development tools have to be reloaded. The ultimate solution is to use an x86 virtualizer, like Virtual PC or other. When using the virtualizer, the way to reboot the WES OS is by launching the virtualizer software.

Use a Virtual PC :

First you need to create a new virtual machine and a hard drive, you can find all the details in the Virtual PC blog.
Then you have to prepare the hard drive to receive the WES files. And for this, you have to create a partition.... and at this point you are locked, except if you have in your drawer, an old booting floppy disk and a floppy disk reader...
Microsoft is providing for IT's a Windows Automated Installation Kit, available for free from their website. This kit provides cool applications, called WinPE, and ways to easily have a booting CD-ROM iso that can be customised to integrate all the applications that can be useful to deploy an OS, like Windows XP, Vista, and WES.

Prepare your booting CD-ROM :
After downloading and installing the AIK package, launch Startup Menu->Microsoft Windows AIK->Windows PE Tools Command Prompt.

1) Initial Folder Creation
copype x86 [Destination_Folder_Path]

2) Add custom Files
Copy required custom files to the ISO folder in \ISO. Like bootsect.exe available in "Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86".

3) Build the customized ISO
oscdimg -n -b[path to etfsboot.com file]\efsboot.com [path to the ISO folder] [path and name of the iso to generate]


Boot the ISO :
When the iso image is generated, then you have to boot it under Virutual PC, by launching the Configuration done previously and going to the CD menu. Then attach the iso file, and Virutal PC should boot on the virutal CD-ROM drive.

Partitions creations :

When WinPE 2.0 boot up, it initialize a shell from where you can launch batch scripts or single comands. >e gonna use diskpart to create, format partition.
Launch dispart from the shell window (PERFORM ALL THOSE COMMANDS FROM THE VIRTUAL PC COMMAND WINDOW ONLY).

1) List the available disks :

list disk

2) Select the disk

select disk 0

3) Clean Up the disk
clean

4) Create a partition

create partition primary size=XXXXX

5) Assigne a letter to the partition
assign letter=C

6) Format the partition

format fs=ntfs quick

7) Activate the partition to be bootable by the Virutal PC BIOS

active

8) Exit diskpart

exit

Then you have to store the boot sector on the partition, diskpart provided with WinPE 2.0 store by default the Vista boot sector, that is not compatible with WES 2009.
9) Prepare boot sector
bootsect /NT52 C:
Note : bootsect.exe can be found in the AIK installation folder and pushed into the CD-ROM Iso

Push files to the target :
The hard drive is now ready to receive the WES runtime files, and the easy way to push those files from the development machine to the virtual hard drive is using the network and the sharing capabilities of Windows.
Share the folder used for the generation of the WES image on the development computer, and use netuse from the Virtual PC to access it.
Then use xcopy to get the files onto the virtual hard drive.

Conclusion :
Using the Virtual PC is fairly easy to get and experiment WES.

- Nicolas

Windows Embedded Standard 2009 Exam Prep Kit Now Available

The first 3 chapters of the exam preparation kit for the Windows Embedded certification are now available here. These chapters are only in English at this time, but additional languages are being developed and will be available in the next few months.

- Nicolas

MCP Certification for Windows Embedded Standard

Microsoft launch last week the MCP Certification for Windows Embedded Standard 2009 (next version of Windows XP Embedded).

The main topic areas are:

• Windows security
• Componentization
• The role of packages, groups, and repository sets
• Application-level development on Windows XP and Windows XP Embedded
• Deployment options and methodologies
• Embedded enabling features (EEFs)
• Working at the hardware level
• Database Manager

As usual for the Embedded MCP Exam, a preparation kit is available :

• Free Preparation Kit (200 page study guide) – available starting mid-March in English, other languages through June
• Languages: English, French, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese

- Nicolas