Debugging Windows CE 5.0 with VS 2005 and emulator

[John Roberts]

Hi,

I have tried this before when the products were in beta but I still have
problems when trying recently with retail Visual Studio 2005.

In short, how to debug compact framework v2.0 using an Windows CE 5.0
emulation image, installed using an SDK built by Platform Builder?

Installed:

Visual Studio 2005
Microsoft Device Emulator v5.0
Custom SDK built by PB with CF v2.0 in the image, embedded C++ support
disabled

Installation of the SDK seems break VS 2005 with the following errors:

Opening a previous compact framework project:

"Platfrom 'XXX' has no devices"
"The project could not be opened because it refers to a device that is not
in your datastore"

Go Tools > Device Emulation Manager...
"Platfrom 'XXX' has no devices"
"Package Load Failure. Package 'Smart Device Configuration Package' has
failed to load properly......"

There are instructions for connecting to a WinCE device without ActiveSync,
but, this applies to a device not an emulator. I'm not sure that the
emulator would accept the incoming TCP/IP connection to use this method but
I will try later.

So, has anyone managed to debug an emulator image of a Win CE 5.0 build with
CF 2.0, no ActiveSync? Is it possible to build an ARM image of a custom Win
CE device using Platform Builder and install that emulator into the
datastore?

TIA,
- John

 

[skindiver]

I would be interested in any answers to this also. From what I have gathered
from the CE news threads the CE generated Emulator SDK is NOT valid for
VS2005 emulator. I suspect because the new emulator in VS2005 is an ARM
based emulator/simulator instead of X86.
I do not know what can do if a component you want is not in the stock VS2005
emulator SDK.

 

[ms]

But as i understand the CE generated emulator SDK has nothing to do
with VS2005 emulator. It should treat this SDK just as any other
device SDK and allow apps to be deployed over the ethernet
connection surely.

 

[John Roberts]

I understand:

1) It is not currently possible to build either an SDK or ARM image for the
new device emulator. This would require updates to Platform Builder (e.g. a
new BSP to target the ARM device emulator). It would be helpful to know if
MS plan to do this. It is possible all the ingrediants may already be there
to build an image for the device emulator - after all, it is supposed to
emulate an ARM device so it might just be a case of selecting an existing
BSP and the right device drivers.

2) It is still possible to build an SDK for the x86 emulator. I'm not sure
if once deployed, VS2005 is supposed to be capable of deploying/debugging on
this emulator. As I have found, once installed, my SDK actually crashes
VS2005 when the device wizard is launched (this also happened in the beta)

It would be nice to know if VS2005 is supposed to work with an SDK built by
platform builder. There might be other ways to debug/depoly CF 2.0 using the
x86 emulator (and custom Win CE image, without ActiveSync), but I have yet
to find out how.

- John