This week I got a brand new, super fast laptop computer. Not only does it have a dual core processor, but also a nice 4 GB of RAM (is anybody reading this, old enough to remember Bill Gates saying that 640 KB or RAM ought to be enough for all of us, back in 1981?), and it came installed with Windows Vista Ultimate. I have to admit that I love Vista’s new look and feel. After all, I am running one of my desktop computers with Windows Vista since it was released. However, I am not using that particular system for software development. Unfortunately, that is still the area where I am having problems. Surely, using Visual Studio 2005 with SP1 and the additional update for Windows Vista, it is possible to create desktop applications. At least I am sure that it is possible to create C# applications, targeting the .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0. However, I am an embedded and mobile developer. That is where the problems start. I got Visual Studio working for Windows Mobile development. It was even possible to connect to the device emulator and cradle it through Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1. Problems really began though when I started creating a brand new Windows Embedded CE 6.0 OS Design using Platform Builder. Even though I installed PB 6.0 SP1, which is needed for Windows Vista support, I still ran into an intriguing problem. It turned out that I could build my Windows CE 6.0 OS Design successfully and even deploy it to the device emulator. At first I was very happy with that result, especially since this was not possible before the release of PB 6.0 SP1. Unfortunately, when I disconnected Visual Studio from the emulator, being done with a debug session, I ran into some serious problems. After disconnecting Visual Studio from the device emulator (2.0), running a Windows CE 6.0 operating system, there was no way I could re-connect to device emulator. The story is even getting worse. When I closed Visual Studio 2005 and re-started it, it crashed. The only solution I found so far was rebooting my development system, running Visual Studio 2005 once again to modify and test my Windows CE 6.0 OS Design, and reboot after my test run. I tried this several times, I also looked at newsgroups for solutions, and it seems that folks are having different experiences with Windows Embedded development under Windows Vista. However, I got a brand new laptop with Vista installed. I made sure to install all software and service packs to be able to develop Windows CE OS Designs, and I still ran into problems. Actually, right now there is only one option left for me, especially since I need a stable system for presentations, downgrade to Windows XP. That is exactly the thing I did in this weekend, actually, wasting a lot of time, since I needed to re-install all of the development tools I am using. Thank goodness for my company, PTS Software bv, I decided to downgrade my laptop in the weekend, just wasting my own time. Right now, my only conclusion is that Windows Embedded CE developers should stick with Windows XP on their development machine. I am writing this with mixed feelings. First off, I love Windows XP since this operating system allows me to develop Windows CE OS Designs, something I need to be able to do for a living. Secondly, I just hate to write negative about Windows Vista, since I really like the new look and feel of this operating system. Hopefully, the first Service Pack for Windows Vista will solve the problems for Windows CE developers. I realize that it is extremely hard to get a brand new operating system released and that it is tough to fix all kinds of compatibility issues. At the same time I hope that we, Windows CE developers are considered to be first class citizens. I would love to write a column in the near future, once SP1 for Windows Vista is released, that we, Windows CE developers, can now safely use Windows Vista on our development machine. Until then, I’ll be quiet about this topic. I only want to share one more thing with right now. Windows XP rocks!!!!! At least all the things I want to do, simply work! Hopefully I can say the same thing very soon about running Windows Vista on my development machine.   

Maarten Struys