Application Deployment Scenarios

[Paul Moon]

I have developed an application which I am distributing on Dell Axim
X51's. Currently, to get the software, my customers must acquire the
device from me and I am pre-installing and configuring the application
on each unit.

I have created a deployment project which creates a cab file for
installing my system. The biggest problem I would like to overcome that
there are currently a total of 5 cab files I have to install,
including CF2.0, my application, SQL Mobile, and some others. It makes
it a very time consuming process. I have placed all of the files on a
CF card to make it easy to get the files on the devices, but I would
like to have a single CAB file to install everything.

Also, if a customer hard reset's their unit, it would be nice to have my
application in ROM image they are using. Is it possible to create my
own ROM and just put that image on each of the devices before I send
them out?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul Moon

 

[Chris Tacke, eMVP]

To generate a single CAB, you'd have to disassemble the existing CABs,
extract the files and registry entries, then add them to the monolithic CAB.
Personally I like the idea, but it's a license violation for the CF and SQL
Mobile.

As for making your own ROM for the X51 - only Dell can do that.

Why not just create an installer app that runs each of the CABs in sequence?

--
Chris Tacke
Co-founder
OpenNETCF.org
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[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

No, you can't build the ROM without significant hardware information from
the device manufacturer. You'd be better off, probably, shipping an SD card
with each unit that contains the installer or taking some approach similar
to that so that the customer has a backup of the software.

Paul T.

 

[Paul Moon]

To generate a single CAB, you'd have to disassemble the existing CABs,
extract the files and registry entries, then add them to the monolithic CAB.
Personally I like the idea, but it's a license violation for the CF and SQL
Mobile.

As for making your own ROM for the X51 - only Dell can do that.

Why not just create an installer app that runs each of the CABs in sequence?

Currently, when I install CF2.0 on the device, it requires a restart.
Can I bypass that from an installer application, or have the setup
automatically resume after reboot? Can you point me to any good
resources for getting an application put together to do this?

 

[Ilya Tumanov [MS]]

Reboot prompt is shown because of OS issue and can be ignored.

Best regards,

Ilya

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[Chris Tacke, eMVP]

I'd try launching with the /noui flag and see if that's suppressed. You
definitely don't need a restart.

--
Chris Tacke
Co-founder
OpenNETCF.org
Are you using the SDF? Let's do a case study.
Email us at d c s @ o p e n n e t c f . c o m
http://www.opennetcf.org/donate