XP SP2 won't let emulator driver load

[Terry Brown]

I upgraded my machine to XP SP2 and now I get an error on startup
indicating that virtual pc/Windows CE emulator driver is disabled for
stability.

Article ID : 883989 on the microsoft web site says that to resolve this
issue, one should remove /PAE from the entry in the boot.ini file on the
machine to diable PAE mode.

Well, my boot.ini doesn't have /PAE anywhere:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut

but I still get the message. Any ideas???

On a related note, I tried to to set up the "deploy to My Computer"
option as described in Daniel Moth's blog. I see the option to deploy to
my computer when I run my compact framework application, and in fact the
application does run, I can set breakpoints and step through code.
However, there is no display of the application anywhere (no windows show
up on the screen). Any ideas??

Terry Brown
Stickman Software
http://www.stickmansoftware.com

 

[Terry Brown]

Hi, Terry,

this was a really good question. It turns out that Microsoft
apparently doesn't know their own syntax. In fact, the
boot.ini option I cared about is the /NoExecute=OptOut. This sets the
type of Data Execution Prevention used. Since I have an AMD64 processor,
this is turned on by XP Service Pack 2 and the OptOut option says allow me
to turn off DEP for specific programs. The gui used for this (Control
Panel/System/Advanced Tab/Performance Settings/Data Execution Prevention
Tab) does not allow you to turn off DEP entirely. However, the driver for
the PocketPC emulator (from Microsoft) is not DEP safe (nor are most
applications, including Windows Explorer on my machine), therefore it will
not load at startup.

To turn off DEP completely and get rid of all the annoying crashes of most
any program, use the following syntax:

/NoExecute=AlwaysOff

This fixes the problem with the emulator and lots of other problems on my
machine.

On the second problem, I didn't notice this, but when I select "My
Computer" as the deploy target and the application runs, it actually runs
on my ActiveSync connected Dell Axim50. Is this what is expected? I
guess I thought that this deployment would run the application on the PC
desktop.

Terry Brown
Stickman Software
http://www.stickmansoftware.com
(yeah, I know, I answered my own questions)