Porting To Windows CE - How Hard Could It Be?

What Tiggers Do Best

I've always considered myself someone who is quick on the uptake. If you throw a new challenge at me, I expect that I should quickly engage myself and learn the basics. Soon I will master the material and be unstoppable in future pursuits. There may be setbacks, certainly, but I'll learn from my mistakes and begin to climb the ladder to climb to a peak of any elevation.

A few years ago, I was tasked with just such a challenge. I was asked to take an existing application (one that I was not very familiar with) and port the code to run on Windows CE version 4.2. "How hard could it be?" I remember thinking. Porting code to run on Windows CE, that's what Tiggers do best!

After a bit of  stumbling around, I found Microsoft eMbedded Visual C++ 4.0 available for download. This seemed to be exactly the tool I needed. A bit more searching allowed me to find some service packs and an SDK with support for my target platform. Tools in hand ...or computer, I set off to modify the code.

I began a new Windows CE project and attempted to copy our existing structure using the new tool set. Wielding the power of preprocessor macros, I updated the code. A few functions were not defined. I was forced to use similar functions with the arguments slightly modified. There were a couple of places where I needed to implement my own replacement or grab existing libraries from the web.

All in all, the porting process progressed smoothly. I learned a few lessons and got away from the project reasonably unscathed. My work was installed sometime later and ran without any significant issues for quite some time.

You see, the real thing that Tiggers (i.e. programmers) do best is to learn and adapt to new technology. We are learners, problem solvers, and excellent at pattern recognition, logic, and technological intuition.

The Version Explosion

Some time later, I was tasked with porting the same application to Windows CE 5. With a bit more searching, I was able to find an SDK that allowed me to continue using the old development environment. I now had multiple platform configurations for the same application, but everything was still okay.

It seems that every six months to a year we found the need to support yet another flavor of Windows CE. Beyond Windows CE 5, it seems that every new OS version requires a new development environment. Worse yet, for platform developers, the platform builder requires yet another environment from the application development environment.

The following table was compiled by Werner Willemsens and lists the development tools required for targeting various versions of Windows CE:

Version	Platform (OS) Builder -> NK.BIN	Smart Device application
Windows CE 4.x	Windows CE Platform Builder 4.x	Embedded Visual Studio 4
Windows CE 5.0	Windows CE Platform Builder 5.0	Visual Studio 2005 + SDK
Windows CE 6.0	Plugin for Visual Studio 2005	Visual Studio 2008 + SDK
Windows CE 7.0	Plugin for Visual Studio 2005	Visual Studio 2008 + SDK
Windows CE 8.0	Plugin for Visual Studio 2012	Visual Studio 2012 + SDK

Take careful note that you will require the Microsoft Visual Studio "Professional" edition or higher in order to target Windows CE. As an alternative to Visual Studio 2005 in the table above, I was able to find a Windows CE 5.0 Standard SDK for use with Microsoft eMbedded Visual C++ 4.0 SP4.

In the link above, Werner goes on to explain how to limit the number of necessary development environments in far more detail than I wish to cover here. I would like to say a big thank you to Werner and the valuable information provided.

P.S. Did I mention that the tools above are not all compatible with the same desktop versions of Windows?

On CE's Struggles

Through my own experiences with Windows CE, I've developed my own theory as to why the platform struggled to gain traction. The theory is simple and kind of sad: Microsoft's development tools are so poorly strung together as to feel that they are actively fighting the developer.

I developed for Windows CE because our business needs directly required it. After spending many hours researching and following many paths leading to dead ends, I was able to piece together a working development environment. Even after doing so, maintaining an application for an array of different OS versions becomes unpleasant and expensive as you need to buy multiple costly software licenses when it would seem that the newer tools should be compatible with the older OS versions.

If, knowing nothing, I were starting a new project and given the choice between multiple platforms, I would probably not choose the one that feels like pulling teeth even before I write a simple "Hello World" application. I believe that this frustrating barrier to entry contributes significantly to developers looking at alternative choices.

A Faint Light

This is highly subjective, but I have a feeling that with each new iteration, Microsoft is beginning to clean up its act and making Windows CE development simpler and more streamlined. They may finally be turning the corner and arriving at a new golden age of embedded development.

As with many programming tasks, getting started with Windows CE development was much more difficult than I had originally anticipated. That said, if you tread carefully and find the right resources, you can create beautiful applications on this platform, too. Hopefully posting some of the information I've discovered along the way will help make the journey just a bit simpler for the next guy.

Cheers,

Joshua Ganes