Taking the plunge

[John Peterson]

We have a machine controller program that is currently in DOS. We are going
to re-write to run in XP Embedded, but we want it to be ALMOST headless. We
basically want XP Embedded to LOOK like DOS (plain black screen that we can
print text to, NO DESKTOP whatsoever, etc) but we can write the code as
windows code and take advantage of things like multi-threading.

Any basic suggestions for which components to do a first test build with?

The only I/O will be some text messages to the screen, some trapped
keystrokes, serial I/O, and if I get really ambitious, TCP/IP.

Bottom line, we want the added benefit of Windows, but don't want the
customer to have any interaface with which they can load their OWN
applications, games, etc. This is a dedictated system and we don't want
customers getting bright ideas.

Thanks

(e-mail address removed)
Fenton, MI

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

You can make minlogon based build with custom shell.

Or if you want to go really low level, you can use only kernel mode
(drivers) and write your code as driver also.
This will give you image that is few megabytes long.

So you should start by reading more about minlogon.

Regards,
Slobodan

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[John Peterson]

Thanks. That gives me my direction to head!

John

 

[John Peterson]

The more I contemplate this answer.....

Are you implying that (since my code will maybe be 2 or 3 megabytes) that
this whole thing could potentially fit on my 16MB Flash disk drive? Now
THAT'S a plus!!!!

I'm beginning to like the looks of this!

John

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

I'm saying that if you want to write kernel mode only drivers you can fit it
on bellow 10 MB. But you must know how to write drivers.
Next image size would be to write your programs using undocumented native
API only.
Normal image size would be with win32 subsystem and minlogon but this would
give you images with more than 30 MB.

Regards,
Slobodan

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[John Peterson]

64MB or 128MB would still be OK. The good thing is that I don't have like
1/2GB of OS of which 90% is never used. It goes back to being a real usable
OS!

Thanks

John