Windows CE 5.0 Live Chat! (June 29, 2005)

Article
01/21/2022

Posted: June 29 2005

Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity

Introduction

mikefos_msft (Moderator):
Welcome to today’s chat with the Windows CE team!
We are pleased to welcome our Experts for today’s chat. I will have them introduce themselves now.

mikecal_MSFT (Expert):
Hi, I'm Mike Calligaro and I'm a development lead in the Joint Development Partners group. We work with PocketPC and Smartphone OEMs to help them get through issues in their drivers and HAL, etc.

mikehall_ms (Moderator):
Hi, I'm Mike Hall, a technical product manager in the Mobile and Embedded Devices group - blog/podcast can be found here - https://blogs.msdn.com/mikehall

Sue Loh [MS] (Expert):
Hi, I'm Sue Loh, a developer on the Windows CE team at Microsoft. I work on system performance, and dabble in the kernel and file system. I hope we can answer some of your questions today.

russellk_MSFT (Expert):
Hi, I'm Russ Keldorph, development lead for the Windows CE native C++ compilers and libraries.

KarelD_MSFT (Expert):
Hi, I am developer in BSP team. So I port Windows CE on real hardware...

Bernard Hymmen [MS] (Expert):
Hello, I'm Bernard Hymmen I am a lead programming writer on the Windows CE documentation team.

RossHe [msft] (Expert):
Hi, I'm Ross - I recently joined the Mobile and Embedded Devices documentation team as a Programming Writer in the Shell and UI subject areas.

dan_MSFT (Expert):
Good morning, my name is Dan, I'm product manager for Windows CE.

DonGam - MS (Expert):
Good morning, I'm Don, Test Technology Lead in US-Windows CE Platforms- Networking

mikefos_msft (Moderator):
Let’s begin the chat. We welcome you to begin submitting your questions for our Experts!

Start of Chat

mikehall_ms (Moderator):
Q: What are the runtime costs for Windows CE and are the runtime costs only for saleable items?
A: The runtime costs for Windows CE are detailed on the Windows/Embedded "How To Buy" page - https://msdn2.microsoft.com/embedded/aa714410.aspx - basically the o/s is licensed as "core" (about $3 per device) and "professional" which is about $14 per device

John Spaith [MS] (Expert):
Q: Morning all (To those of you for which it is morning) Can anyone tell me if ServerXMLHTTPRequest is supported in CE 5.0
A: No, ServerXMLHTTPRequest is not supported in WinCE's MSXML. When we ported the code from WinXP, to save some ROM we removed some of the server-specific functionality.

mikecal_MSFT (Expert):
Q: How can I programmatically trigger the same refresh for the today screen plugins that happens after going to the settings app->today->items?
A: We're going to work on this one offline. We've tried a few people who might know the answer, but none of them seem to be in yet.

mikefos_msft (Moderator):
Q: could someone please explain to me how to get some background theme music on my computer when i log on to my username after the programs start up
A: Hello, our scheduled chat today is in regards to Windows CE Development. If your question is not in regards to Windows CE, may I suggest that our public newsgroups might be a great place to pose this question.

mikehall_ms (Moderator):
Q: Can you deploy an image to boot it up in VPC?
A: you could... Windows CE 5.0 ships with an x86 Emulator that you could target directly from the Windows CE development tools. You could boot MS-DOS on Virtual PC and use the Windows CE utility LOADCEPC to load your Windows CE NK.BIN file - I would use the Windows CE Emulator though, it would be a better development experience.

GlennD_MS (Expert):
Q: In CE 4.x NDIS the DPC (MiniportHandleInterrupt) and ISR(MiniportISR) ran at two different priorities in two different threads. In CE 5.0, they appear to be running in the same thread. Are there setting to get back to CE 4.x operation ?
A: No, the design was changed in CE 5.0 to reduce context switching and improve networking performance. Is this causing a problem?

mikecal_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Display driver question: I have a Native QVGA 320X240 display. I am interested in the options to support this type of display with the existing resource files in PB. Should I use the SYSGEN_QVGA (portrait) resources or do I need to resize all dialogs?
A: Just to confirm, you're a PB customer, not PocketPC/Smartphone, correct? Is the issue that you're a landscape display and your product needs to be portrait?

KarelD_MSFT (Expert):
Q: For KarelD - Where is the hardware compatibility web page for Windows CE "real hardware" i.e. motherboards?
A: To be honest I only know there is some hardware related pages. If your question is related to x86 (PC) based hardware in general kernel should work on all motherboards. Problem is with device drivers. We support flat displays and ATI XL cards (plus some others). Similar situation is with sound cards.

KarelD_MSFT (Expert):
Q: For KarelD - Where is the hardware compatibility web page for Windows CE "real hardware" i.e. motherboards?
A: Cont - if you have some specific board in mind try to look if vendor doesn't have device drivers for it (some companies do).

John Spaith [MS] (Expert):
Q: Ahh. That makes sense, because the MSXML header has IServerXMLHTTPRequest in but its not registered on my emulator. In which case, whats the best way to post a request to a webservice using SSL with an invalid certificate and ignore the warnings??
A: Oh hey Nick - I didn't even realize it was you at first. I don't see a way in CE's MSXML to disable the cert check. As I said in the newsgroup post the ideal way is to get a valid cert in the 1st place :). The only other way I see to do this is to get the data with Wininet and then pass it into an XMLDOM. Check out https://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/ms909405.aspx, in particular the INTERNET_FLAG_IGNORE_CERT_DATE_INVALID and INTERNET_FLAG_IGNORE_CERT_CN_INVALID related flags.

mikehall_ms (Moderator):
Q: I want to create a customized drop down box for Windows Mobile 2005. It will have a different look. In general, how do I go about this? If the interface for the existing drown down class doesn't support what I need, do I need to write my own from scratch?
A: Have you taken a look at subclassing the control?

Sue Loh [MS] (Expert):
Q: Hi everyone, I have a question about CMD. I would like to do some customisation of it to fit my requirements. I can't find the source code for it and believe that it is private. Is it available? If not, is there a way of obtaining it for customisation?
A: It looks like we don't ever ship the source code to CMD, on any license. I'm not sure why, but you probably can't get a copy.

mikecal_MSFT (Expert):
Q: After associating the recorder hard button to my app I tired to set it back to the default behavior with UnregisterHotKey but it will not go back to launch recorder, all other buttons work except recorde. to fix it I need to go to settings->buttons
A: If you go into settings->buttons first and assign the button to something other than recorder, then run your app, everything works correctly, right? Record has special behavior, and that might be causing your trouble.

mikehall_ms (Moderator):
Q: I am trying to create an application with shockwave flash support on a WinCE5.0 platform using embedded VC++ 4.0. Is there a built in shockwave flash ActiveX control in embedded VC++? Or if not how do I go about to use flash in my application?
A: no, there isn't a built in flash ActiveX control - Flash is something that you would need to license for your application or operating system image from Macromedia.

mikecal_MSFT (Expert):
Q: When I try run my nk.bin local, after the executing the loadcepc the screen comes to a hang position is just blank - can you give suggestion to this (Wince5.0, x86 CEPC)
A: Do you have a debugger enabled image without PB connected? It sounds like the CEPC is waiting for the debugger to connect. If you set IMGNODEBUGGER=1 and make the image again, that will make it not wait for the debugger.

John Spaith [MS] (Expert):
Q: That's bad news for me I suppose. Are there any CMD alternatives?
A: What are you trying to do to it - it may be built in already but hard to find? There's a file named console.h that has some common stuff and I may be able to help out.

GlennD_MS (Expert):
Q: Is there a way to controller the number of seconds between LCP retries when establishing a PPP connection? Also is there a way to turn on logging of raw PPP data to a file (not netlog)?
A: I do not believe the LCP retry interval is configurable, but will double check to be sure. You can enable some additional PPP logging through the "ppp.dll" debug zones, which can be directed to a file through Platform Builder. Aside from that there is no additional logging.

mikecal_MSFT (Expert):
Q: I never tried doing that since Im trying to get it all done programmatically, is there a workaround?
A: Let's make sure that's the issue first. I'm not aware of a workaround, but I'll check while investigating your other issue. In the mean time, can you try the manual approach and see if it fixes it? That'll help us track down what's going on.

John Spaith [MS] (Expert):
Q: Hi John. I didn't see you there in the experts list. If the certificate was valid, Wouldn't XMLHTTPRequest handle it anyway?? I have looked in to using WinInet and will persue if needs be. It's just that XMLHTTPREquest does exactly what I need.
A: Correct, if the cert was valid than XMLHTTPRequest would do the right thing. My understanding here is that you're trying to make this work with an invalid cert during your initial dev purposes. Since you need to figure out how to get a valid cert on eventually, that may be the problem you should be focusing on rather than working around the fact that XMLHTTP doesn't let you point it at invalid certs.

mikecal_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Do I need to set IMGNODEBUGGER=1 even if i m trying access / load local nk.bin image file using loadcecpc
A: IMGNODEBUGGER is a separate issue from whether the image is local or remote. If you don't set IMGNODEBUGGER, the image will stop and wait for the debugger to connect very early in the boot process. If you DO set it, then it won't wait (too many negatives, I know). That is true regardless of where the image is coming from.

mikehall_ms (Moderator):
Q: Is Remote Desktop available in CE?
A: RDP Client is available in Windows CE, not RDP "server"

Sue Loh [MS] (Expert):
Q: I'm getting the following DEBUGCHK - what should I be looking for:0x8ea61400: MMFILE: resuming/backing out previous logged FlushMap (flags=0xffffffff, start=0xffffffff, pages=0x0041) 0x8ea61400: NK Kernel: DEBUGCHK failed in file c:\macallan\private\wince
A: Okay. I looked back at the code and I think that means your file is in a state it shouldn't ever reach -- some flags at the front of the file are invalid, maybe corrupt. What file system is your data stored on, is it TFAT? CEDB database volumes and registry hives need to be stored on a transacted file system in order to stay valid.

John Spaith [MS] (Expert):
Q: I am wanting to do remote support of stand alone systems (replacing Linux systems). Using telnet to connect and not having any GUI on the system the CMD (or console) is to be used. Just wanting to make it a little easier to navigate.
A: I'm still not quite sure what cmd.exe is missing. Windows CE already has a telnet server shipped as an optional component in platform builder. Are you trying to just get basic telnet working - there's MSDN info and https://blogs.msdn.com/cenet/archive/2004/09/30/236426.aspx. Or are you trying to add some custom feature to cmd/telnet server that doesn't seem built in by default.

mikecal_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Yes that worked!! I associated record button with solitaire and now it works fine!
A: Good to know. I'll check if there's a workaround to let you do it programmatically while following up on your earlier question (offline).

jblanton [MS] (Expert):
Q: Is Remote Desktop available in CE?
A: You can use the Remote Desktop Connection on the CE device to connect to XP/2000/2003 PCs. You can't RDP into a CE device.

Sue Loh [MS] (Expert):
Q: I'm trying to get the USB Mass_Storage_Class Function Driver to work on the Intel PXA270. I installed all the lastest QFEs and now it works (after a delay of 10-20 seconds the disk is detected). I heard there will be a fix to this specific problem, when?
A: I'm sorry, we don't have anyone online right now who is able to help with this one. Let's follow up offline and post the result to the transcript after the fact.

John Spaith [MS] (Expert):
Q: Thanks John. If we set up an in-house validation server to validate our certificate. How do we add this server to our CE configuration so we can validate our own certificate??
A: In the newsgroup post I made yesterday, I pointed you at some possible code samples to make this work on a headless device. Basically there's enroll.exe which may (or may not) work and there's also a UI control panel in public code that you may be able to copy & paste code snippets into. I've never done this myself but it should just work.

russellk_MSFT (Expert):
Q: An ARM processor reports these value during boot. They appear to be special stack pointers. Please desribe the context in which I would be called on one of these and how deep of a stack I have on these sp_abt=ffff5000 sp_irq=ffff2800 sp_undef=ffffc800
A: These are the callstacks the CPU switches to when an exception vector is entered. Only kernel and possibly OAL code should be entered in one of these modes, but the kernel will typically switch to System mode fairly quickly before servicing one of these exceptions. System mode uses the User-mode register bank, and so executes on the original callstack. You can find more information in the ARM Architecture Reference Manual. For the sizes of the callstacks, refer to %_WINCEROOT%\private\winceos\coreos\nk\kernel\arm\armtrap.s in the kernel sources if you have installed the extra sources with PB.

KarelD_MSFT (Expert):
Q: I'm using Platform build 4.2. I realized that it's easy to add PCI bus into platform in X86. But in ARM or MIPS, I always failed adding PCI. Can anyone tell me the reason or how to correctly add it?
A: You have implement few IOCTL codes in kernel. I am not sure if I get all of them, but there is IOCTL code which allows to read/write PCI bus configuration space (IOCTL_HAL_DDK_CALL). You also have to implement IOCTL_REQUEST_IRQ which is used to get card IRQ based on bus location.

Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert):
Q: When I try run my nk.bin local, after the executing the loadcepc the screen comes to a hang position is just blank - can you give suggestion to this (Wince5.0, x86 CEPC)
A: If you don't get as far as PB connecting, I'd highly recommend running a null modem cable from your CEPC to your host PC to capture serial debug output. This really helps you figure out where in the bootloading process you are. It's likely that you're failing in the bootloader code, not in loadcepc.

mikecal_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Thanks Mike, Is there any way to get the OS to call my PromptForPasswd the same way it gets called after a soft reset or a wake from suspend mode? We are using the CPL dblclick but it is not as secure as the native call
A: There is, but as with all of your other questions, I don't know the answer. )-: I'm dragging the shell guys to the next one of these chats. I'll follow up with that one too.

russellk_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Russellk - Is it expected that RNDIS KITL code would be called on these stacks? Does that mean the code is being called during an exception?
A: I expect so. Which stack is it specifically, and what problem are you seeing? Stack overflow? I think you might see KITL entered on these stacks particularly if you are using the kernel debugger, which uses KITL as a transport.

John Spaith [MS] (Expert):
Q: John, yes, I am trying to add some extra functionality to cmd - I have telnet working fine. For example, telling the called application what directory it was called from (I know there is no "current dir" functionality in CE but "touch file" is handy)
A: One (lazy) workaround to this would be for you never to let the application you care about be started directly, but instead to have it wrapped in a .bat file. The .bat file could pass in the current working directory as the first argument to the application that you write that cares about this. I'm not quite sure of the semantics of how this would work; there may be a cleaner way with environment variables but an ineloquent way would be to have the .bat do 'cd > someFile.txt' and then read someFile.txt out and pass it's contents to the command. Obviously not thread safe though :(.

mikecal_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Will, Pocket office have a plug-in architecture in this release so that people can add value to the mail platform?
A: Assuming you're asking about Windows Mobile 5.0, there are a number of new extensibility options in mail and the pim apps. I'm not sure about Word and Excel though.

mikehall_ms (Moderator):
Q: Hi, we built an application for the WinCE5 platform. We built the image and got the bin file. Now we lost the source code to our application. Is there any way to reverse compile the .bin file to get back the source to the application?
A: no, there isn't a way to reverse the binary into source - if the application is a managed application and hasn't been obfuscated then you might be able to recover something.

KarelD_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Will there be a standard Video Capture interface in future version of WinCE? Or as an addon?
A: You can expect it in future WinCE versions. It is part of Windows Mobile now.

Travis Hobrla [MS] (Expert):
Q: I haven’t used any bootloader codes, I was able to run the nk.bin (present locally, prepared using wince4.2) using the same loadcepc of wince5.0. This is to just confirm whether any problem exists in loadcepc file. I face this problem only if I load the nk.bin prepared using wince5.0 - I need to check after setting IMGNODEBUGGER=1 as suggested earlier.
A: There were some changes to loadcepc between 4.2 and 5.0, but I don't have the details of those changes on hand. But it's possible that the 4.2 loadcepc might not be able to stomach the 5.0 NK.bin files. I'll try to get more details for you.

mikehall_ms (Moderator):
Q: is there any TTS engine readily available for wince 5.0 - x86 & PXA255 boards
A: the API's are exposed in Windows CE 5.0, but we don't ship a speech engine - you would need to license a speech engine from a 3rd party - there are a number of vendors that have speech engines available for Windows CE

Sue Loh [MS] (Expert):
Q: Why is there such a long delay when mounting USB Mass storage devices (per the earlier question)? We've noticed this on our board as well.
A: As I said to the previous question: "I'm sorry, we don't have anyone online right now who is able to help with this one. Let's follow up offline and post the result to the transcript after the fact." If you "whisper" me your email alias I'll add you to the email conversation, else you can check back for the chat transcript.

John Spaith [MS] (Expert):
Q: This there a way in the system authentication API's to hook the authentication that Telnet and the gateway management web interface uses so that I can use a hardware based authentication device?
A: Unfortunately there's not a plugin-mechanism between Telnet & Web Server and the underlying security code. They both use the "NTLM" security package and the standard API's (AcceptSecurityContext, AcquireCredentialsHandle, etc...). It's hardcoded to "NTLM" so unless you could somehow replace this package I don't know how to make this work - none of our security devs are in this morning so I don't know if that's possible, though I'm sure it'd be ugly even if it is. For web server at least, you could use FORMs based authentication where your ASP/ISAPI extension itself would process the username/password send in a FORM or HTTP headers and your server script itself would validate the data versus hardware.

mikehall_ms (Moderator):
Q: Regarding reverse compiling to source - what do you mean by managed application? if it is so how can we recover it?
A: a managed application is an application written using Visual Studio .NET 2003 or Visual Studio 2005, using C# or VB. The application source is compiled into an intermediate format known as MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language).

Bernard Hymmen [MS] (Expert):
Q: I can use SHLoadDIBitmap to load a bitmap in WinCE. There is another API I can use to load image in other format, like jpeg or gif?
A: You can use the Imaging API to work with compressed image formats. Here's the link to the documentation on MSDN https://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/ms909405.aspx

russellk_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Going back to the ARM stack pointers - we see a stack pointer getting to FFFFC0F0 range and then we start having problems. I'm guess we are on sp_undef at that point - how deep is that stack?
A: Yep, that's undef, a.k.a the "kernel stack" according to ARMTRAP.S. It's 2K, but it's base is at FFFFC000, so you are close to overflowing it at FFFFC0F0.

mikecal_MSFT (Expert):
Q: We are trying to build an OS image for an ARM9 platform. The problem that we are facing is that, the Internet Explorer application freezes when we open it on the board. Even when it is trying to open a local html file from the windows directory.
A: Are you running Windows Mobile (PocketPC/Smartphone) or general embedded (everything else in Windows CE)?

KarelD_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Is it possible to support WMA and Windows Streaming with a USB based audio device?
A: As long as there will be WAVe driver for audio device I don't see any problem.

Chetl_MSFT (Expert):
Q: I have enabled complex script support in wince5.0 for multi language support, suddenly my started refreshing slowly before this inclusion it refresh rate properly, is this something corelated to complex script enabling. I tried to use INDIC languages set.
A: Can you clarify exactly what is drawing slowly - your application or something else? Which Indic languages (Hindi, Tamil, Kanada ?) sysgens are you using? It does take more time to draw complex script glyphs however that's just cause the glyphs are more complex. Are you comparing the speed drawing Latin characters or Hindi glyphs?

mikehall_ms (Moderator):
Q: Will there be full MFC support on smartphones under CE5?
A: MFC is not supported on Smartphone devices - you should consider Win32/C++ or C#/VB

russellk_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Does anyone know if there is any plan to finish off implementing C++ STL on CE in the near future??
A: We currently support most of STL compatible with Visual Studio 6.0, which I agree is very old. Note that the STL is a small part of the C++ standard library. It would be great to get feedback on exactly what you would like to see. We are aware of the problem and have plans to address it in a future version of Windows CE, but I can comment on timeframe. Note that Visual Studio 2005 (available in beta now) has much better C++ library support.

mikecal_MSFT (Expert):
Q: I'm considering developing and advanced profiler for the CE graphics subsystem and this would need to run on *retail* PPC/SP devices. What are my options for sending log data back to the host PC in realtime? ActiveSync?
A: On a retail device, you've got a few options. ActiveSync is the easiest, but you could also do a GPRS connection or a Bluetooth connection. If you don't really need to do it realtime, you could store the data to an SD card and then pull it off afterward.

KarelD_MSFT (Expert):
Q: regarding freezing IE-error messages that we get - "ASSERT FAILURE at c:\macallan\private\wceshellfe\browsing\browser\request.cpp line 3277"
A: Based on information you give me on whisper chat I believe there is some issue with memory on your system. It case be RAM controller initialization (incorect memory layout, refresh period, speed etc) and/or cache. Errors you describes are secondary I believe (caused by memory corruption).

Chetl_MSFT (Expert):
Q: gus: Steve: I believe that the width and height of resources such as dialog boxes are defined by "dialog units" and are based on the size of the system font in the current display mode. As such they should scale fine.
A: Correct. Your dialog should scale fine.

GlennD_MS (Expert):
Q: Yes, on the NIC we're using there are very few buffers, so I have to unload and buffer packets to go up the stack. It will drop packets during the time it takes to Indicate a packet to NDIS. Previously, the ISR was unloading. The DPC was indicating them up
A: I have asked Bill to follow up on the microsoft.public.windowsce.platbuilder newsgroup and our dev staff will help further there.

russellk_MSFT (Expert):
Q: On the kernel stack issue - I'm most interested in the KITL related OAL routines that get called on this stack. We and doing an RNDIS KITL adaptation and are getting bit by our code being called in this context overflowing the stack.
A: Sorry, but you've reach the depth of my kernel knowledge. There is a kernel thread that makes KITL calls, but I don't think it uses the "kernel stack" as its stack, though its stack is in kernel space. I encourage you to post this question to the newsgroup and/or email me (russellk@microsoft.com). I can try to find some more answers offline.

Sue Loh [MS] (Expert):
Q: while im debugging through platform builder, i get the following message, "First-chance exception in FILESYS.exe. (0xC0000005: Access Violation.. when running the .netcf 2.0 beta cab and launching my app. There doesn't seem to be anything posted about thi
A: Out of time -- let's figure this out offline.

Chetl_MSFT (Expert):
Q: I believe that the width and height of resources such as dialog boxes are defined by "dialog units" and are based on the size of the system font in the current display mode. As such they should scale fine. Can an expert confirm this?
A: That is correct. Following your previous thread, your working on a dialog in 320x220 (landscape) mode. You should be able to use dialog units just fine.

russellk_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Hi Russel. I guess it's the C++ streaming bits I miss. Which of course means that the STL streaming bits can't be implemented.
A: I believe VS 2005 has much better support in this area, so I encourage you to try it. Again, we hope to address this is the core Windows CE platform in a future release. Thanks for the feedback!

mikefos_msft (Moderator):
Q: when is the next Win CE5 chat session scheduled to be held?
A: Our Windows CE chats are scheduled for the last Wednesday of the month. Please keep an eye out at msdn.microsoft.com/chats for specifics.

Chetl_MSFT (Expert):
Q: I m using Tamil with complex scripting enabled and when I m trying to display a particular statement via drawtext api it takes time. If I trying to dispaly the same equivalent in english with enabling complex scripting in PB application is able to display
A: Ok, I understand now. DrawText takes more time to draw when complex script is enabled because it has to parse the string before display and hand off the Tamil portion to Uniscribe (the complex script drawing engine). So comparing English text drawing speed with and w/o CS enabled, you will see a slowdown as part of the cost of having CS turned on. You can minimize this by not redrawing text in your application unless you have too.

[Moderator’s note: this following response has been appended to the chat transcript]

The number of seconds is configurable via the registry since CE 4.2. See the “RestartTimer” description at https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wcedial/html/coconDial-upRegistryKeys.asp

mikefos_msft (Moderator):
Thank you for joining us today for our chat with the Windows CE team. We're still wrapping up a couple of questions.

Just a reminder that we’ll be hosting a Platform Builder Documentation chat tomorrow. Please see https://msdn.microsoft.com/chats for more information.

If your question didn’t get answered, I’d encourage you to post to the public newsgroups and we’ll do our best to respond to them. I apologize for any inconvenience.

We hope to see you again for a future chat!

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