SURVEY: New embedded devices and ideas to research

[Andy Allred [MS]]

The Windows Embedded team is investigating new technologies that our
customers would like us to invest in for the next embedded OS release.
Besides the standard scenarios such as WBT, RPOS, Information Appliance,
Kiosk, STB and NAS/SAN that we concentrated on for XPe, what other devices
or newer devices would you like us to invest research in for the next
embedded OS release.

Please respond to this thread with your ideas and requests for newer
devices. Next week, I'll follow up with another thread with some questions
targeting specific feedback you've given us.

If you prefer not to discuss your devices or ideas in public, please feel
free to e-mail me at (e-mail address removed) (please remove ONLINE from
the address).

As usual, thanks for the feedback and for making our product even better.

Andy Allred

 

[Mark K Vallevand]

Before embarking on these new journeys, I'd sure like to see the current
crop of issues resolved.

So far, I have these work-arounds or problems in my builds.
- EnableAutoLayout registry work-around
- Time zones simply can't be set by the Date/Time Control Panel app
- DrWatson registry work-around
- Shell Open for scripts registry work-around
- The Target Designer can't automatically remove the dependancies of a
component you remove
- Primitive: MPRUI must be manually added to support drive mapping
- Unbelievable dependancies, for my headless, voiceless IIS server I've got
Outlook Express,Media Files, DirectSound, Analog TV, File Server for
Macintoch, etc
- Still don't have .NET 1.1 component

And, my management still thinks its too expensive to license.

 

[Mark K Vallevand]

Before embarking on these new journeys, I'd sure like to see the current
crop of issues resolved.

So far, I have these work-arounds or problems in my builds.
- EnableAutoLayout registry work-around
- Time zones simply can't be set by the Date/Time Control Panel app
- DrWatson registry work-around
- Shell Open for scripts registry work-around
- The Target Designer can't automatically remove the dependancies of a
component you remove
- Primitive: MPRUI must be manually added to support drive mapping
- Unbelievable dependancies, for my headless, voiceless IIS server I've got
Outlook Express,Media Files, DirectSound, Analog TV, File Server for
Macintoch, etc
- Still don't have .NET 1.1 component

And, my management still thinks its too expensive to license.

 

[Simon Wilton]

I'd endorse everything Mark said.

Couple of other detail gripes. I found ways round most of them, but it was
like pulling teeth, and some of the solutions are very inelegant.
- The sheer impenitrability of EWF
- Better tools for minimising the footprint
- Better tools for deploying on CF/DOC
- Better ways of seeing dependencies (and where dependent components are
used)
- Better management method for unwanted dependencies
- More touchscreen drivers included
- DirectX9 a bit at a time to go with .NET 1.1
- Better TCP/IP and network configuration support - including static IP
settings in TD
- User account role (administrator/guest/etc) and password management
(expiry/can change) tick boxes in component
- Slicker Wi-Fi: SSID, WEP, etc set-up within TD:
- A built-in component for us poor saps who want to talk direct to hardware
(Yes I know we ought to take the time to write our own device driver, but
sometimes life is too short).
- 'Lite' versions of some of the main applications (think Embedded IE
falling somewhere between the full IE and Pocket IE)

My biggest gripe remains hardware support. I am a long way from expert, but
I am fed up with those who are supposed to be able to help me (and paid for
that role) knowing less than even I do. I suggest that it should be part of
the contract to be an "embedded partner" that an SBC vendor must provide a
support package that comprises the definition of the SBC itself as a PMQ or
macro SLD and SLDs for all the devices that are not in the MS standard
database. As a user I can't see why such a support package for XPe should
not be free as it is for every other version of Windows (and every other OS
they support), but I could swallow a reasonable charge (one distributor has
quoted me 20x the cost of the SBC for providing XPe support - this, needless
to say, I don't consider reasonable). Every distributor for every "embedded
partner" should have adequate technical support. I would define adequate as
knowing the name and email address of some-one who does know. You would not
believe the number of organisations that I've talked to where the
conversation with the technical contact can be summarised
"Do you support XPe on product X?"
"Yes we support XP."
"Is there an SLD available for device Y on product X?"
"What is an SLD?"
"Do you know anything about XPe - that is the embedded version of XP?"
"No."
"Can you give me the name of some-one who does?"
"No."

I would also suggest that there should be a service level in the partner's
contracts for responding to queries - with removal of partner status widely
advertised for those who cause repeated complaints from users to MS. For
once I think that MS should use its considerable muscle and enforce this
with a big stick.

 

[Mark K Vallevand]

Amen.

I also wish Microsoft had direct support for XPe. How many vendors are
truely equipped to do any significant support for XPe? Yes, they can recite
chapter and verse of Xpe pitches, and they can do a demo of Target Designer.
But, how may can work through a fundamentally-broken-deep-in-the-bowels
problem solution with you?

 

[Rene]

I would say that one of the most important things I would like to see for
Windows XP embedded is some kind of support for "real time" operations just
like Windows CE.



I am not sure if this can be done or not, but it would sure be nice to have
some kind of support for this. Having a Timer control that would fire up at
exact time intervals would be close to having an orgasm.



Thank you.

 

[Kesavan]

Perfect.That would be a great treat for many.We had to go for real
time extentions provided by others like venturcom ..

 

[Kesavan]

Perfect.That would be a great treat for many.We had to go for real
time extentions provided by others like venturcom in past..

 

[Rene]

Hey, I didn't think it would be possible to get such thing as real time
behavior in Window XP. I just visited the Venturcom website and got a little
bit of information from it.



If you don't mind, could you tell me if these real-time extensions provided
by Venturcom area easy to use? Is there a steep learning curve to be able to
use them?



Thank you.

 

[Kesavan]

Not really.I too felt it wouldnt be comfortable to understand it ..
but it seems to be pretty easy to go through.However I would suggest
you to,to get in touch with them for they also provide training I
believe, if Im not wrong.

Regards
Kesavan

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

Daylight support when using RAM EWF.

I don't know how others are fighting with this problem, but it is a problem.

XPe keep changing the time by one hour every time it is rebooted.
This happens because XPe can't save registry change to disk when time is
adjusted.


I suggest two possible solutions to this problem.

1.
That we can designate path to file (out of EWF protection) that will hold
current daylight saving state.

2.
Info on daylight saving state should be in CMOS (probably not universally
possible).



Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Doug Hoeffel \(eMVP\)]

Slobodan:

Search the NG archives. I have documented in the past how I have overcome
this.

Let me know if you need more info after you google ;-)

HTH... Doug

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

Thanks,
I have already seen your workaround solution, but it requires that XPe
reboots itself when time change is detected, am I right? Should I look
further for some other/better solution?

If I can't find any better solution, then I'll apply the most reliable "Do
it yourself" solution.

I just reported this here to remind MS what should be done in future release
on XPe.
There are many low level things that are colliding with EWF or minlogon, so
I hope that someone from MS is putting them at least at the bottom of to-do
queue.


Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Doug Hoeffel \(eMVP\)]

Yes, you are correct. My method detects the change, commits, then reboots.

.... Doug

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

Has anyone tried following registry key?

RealTimeIsUniversal DWORD 1
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation\

I'm testing it now and it seams to work but it is only first impression.
I'll have to do more thorough tests before I include it in my image
permanently.

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Doug Hoeffel \(eMVP\)]

In case you haven't already, check out this link:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/mswish/ut-rtc.html

There is a section on the reg key that you mention but it was for NT. Let
us know what you find ;-)

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

Hi Doug,

I have seen this link, found it trough following thread:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=9hvj6g%2
4eu6%241%40pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fq%3DRealTimeIsUnivers
al%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D9hvj6g%2524eu6%25241
%2540pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk%26rnum%3D2


I have following results from few tests.

Good: If you change time in BIOS, time in Windows reflect correct local time
with daylight saving compensation.
Bad or Good?: Windows is prevented from changing CMOS time (something like
EWF for partition). Consequence of this is that if you have changed time in
Windows it won't be reflected after reboot.

One thing that we need to check is: If XPe in this mode will do the daylight
saving while running at the specified time.


Basically, this can be used if you don't need to provide time and date set
functionality for your device.



Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

Doug,

Just to let you know than I was able to successfully track problem with time
set.

Kernel function NtSetSystemTime does not call HalSetRealTimeClock when we
use RealTimeIsUniversal switch. But manually calling HalSetRealTimeClock
does change hardware time.

I don't know how useful this info is to you and to the others, but since I
have written drivers for our hardware, including call to this function was
easy.

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

This approach has problem that I should have tested first.

If time change happens while Windows is running, then system service begin
infinite loop that eat most of processor time on HTT machine (single
processor machine would probably stop responding).

Also this behavior happens if you boot with time set to fall in two hour
windows before time change.
If you boot device before or after this time window, time is adjusted and
shown correctly.
For instance in our time zone it is +1 and +2 hours time offset comparing
with RTC time.

So this flag can't be used without consequences.

I hope that MS will make this or similar functionality available to us XPe
developers, since this is only real solution to time saving with stateless
EWF problem.


Slobodan