install CF to iPaq File Store?

[Guest]

Is there any way to install the .NET CF 2.0 redistributable to the File Store
area? Or, in general, is there any way to prevent the CF from vanishing
after a hard reset or battery drain.

On a similar note, is there any way to prevent an app shortcut in
Windows\Startup from vanishing, too?

tia

 

[Marcantonio]

Is there any way to install the .NET CF 2.0 redistributable to the File Store
area? Or, in general, is there any way to prevent the CF from vanishing
after a hard reset or battery drain.

I'd recommend reading the following:

Relocate .NET Compact Framework 2.0 to your storage card
http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=220463

*however*, the CF2 installation does not just copy the files to the
handheld memory. a couple of registry entries are added. even if the CF2
files and libraries survive a hard reset, I doubt they're any useful at
that point.

Marcantonio

 

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

The problem is that the registry is gone after a hard reset. The best you
can do if you constantly have hard resets is to put the CAB files in the
file store and instruct the user (or yourself), how to install then after a
hard reset.

Paul T.

 

[Ilya Tumanov [MS]]

You can not. But you can upgrade to WM 5.0 device which uses flash for
storage and would preserve everything even in case battery runs out.


--
Best regards,

Ilya

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

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[scott]

Yes you can,

After a hard reset if you have an autorun.exe located in the \Ipaq File
Store\2577\ directory (this will depend on your model ipaq as its based
on the processor) it will get run, basically write a simple vc++ app
which will run wceload and install the .net CF cab files and any cab
files for your application.

We have done something similar which on a hard reset will install .net,
install our application, make some registry changes to set up
network/backlight/power settings, delete the default entries from
/windows/start menu and add a link to our application and then reboot
all completely silently. All you need to be able to manage in vc++ is
installing .net, after thats done the next step can be to invoke a .net
program to do the rest of the setup.

Search for '2577' on these forums and you'll get more detail

 

[Guest]

Yup, excellent reply, Scott.

If you don't want to get your hands dirty with C++ code, you can use
our app, PocketPC Installer:
http://www.pocketpcinstaller.com

Basically, you drag your CF .cab file, and any other .cab files you might
need (SQL, SQLCE and your application .cab) into our app, and it
compresses all the files - and the code to install them - into one,
standalone, PocketPC .exe file.

Remember, most .cab files AREN'T compressed, so you end up with
a large .exe file, but it's a LOT smaller than the total filesizes of your
..cab files.

From there, you copy this PDA installer .exe file onto your device as:
\Storage Card\2577\autorun.exe
... and whenever your device hard-resets, or if the user removes/inserts
the card into a fresh device, it'll go through and install your .cab files,
one by one.

It's also got some useful stuff in there -
- you can choose which .cab files you want installing on each device
type. However, it won't let you install a .cab file onto an incompatible
device (such as a VS2005 ARMv5 .cab onto a PPC2002 device).
- by default, it'll only install .cab files that haven't already been
installed
on this device, although you can ask it to re-install certain .cabs
regardless.
- you can ask it to soft-reset your device afterwards
- it also has intelligence to get around a problem with some devices
kicking off these autorun.exe's when the device comes out of the Idle
state. (In other words, when you first turn on your device in the
morning, you don't *want* to see it attempt to start re-installing
everything.)

It's ridiculously easy to use, and extremely powerful.

Oh, and *aswell* as creating a standalone PocketPC installer .exe
file, it also creates a standalone Desktop installer .exe file. Once again,
this is just one file that you can send to a friend for them to run on
their PC, and it'll copy and install everything you want onto their
device. Very cool.

Hope this helps.


James