Talk:Windows Embedded Compact

Gizmondo

I added the Gizmondo to the list of game systems that use Windows CE. Does the Tapwave Zodiac use it as well? --M.Neko 06:25, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

No, the Zodiac is a Palm OS device. The Zodiac is also more of a PalmOS PDA designed for Gaming than it is a custom emebedded game console like the Gizmondo was. In addition to playing games, its still a full normal PalmOS PDA. The Gizmondo was not designed like this, though it was eventually hacked to allow third party Windows CE apps to run and after its death it turned into more of a WinCE PDA thanks to the user community.Tfgbd 09:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Is Windows CE a trimmed down version of desktop Windows ???

I'd like to know if this is really true: is Windows CE a trimmed down version of Desktop Windows ? Isn't it a major rewrite ? It is stated in the paragraph:

Back in the day when palmtops were up and coming, Microsoft trimmed down Windows into Windows CE (CE = Compact Edition). The first version, nicknamed "Pegasus" featured a Windows-like GUI and a number of Microsoft's popular applications, all trimmed down for smaller storage, memory and speed of the palmtops of the day. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hgfernan (talk • contribs) 02:07, 17 May 2004 (UTC).

Here is the status-

Windows CE is and always has been a complete redo of big windows. At its core it is true 32 bit ,no DOS legacy at all. (Win-9x/me was also true 32-bit, not DOS) what MS did do is preserve the Windows API as for as possible. Possible means limited by the type of device- for example touch screen devices by and large do not support "hover" so you are not going to see that in windows CE .

CE 3.0 was a major recode that made CE hard real time down to the microsecond level.

CE 4x changed the driver structure a lot, and added Features . 5.0 adds lots of features.

Lawrence Ricci eMVP —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.55.177.199 (talk • contribs) 02:02, 27 June 2004 (UTC).

What interests me more is this; what version of "desktop windows" is Windows CE trimmed down from? I assume Windows 95, but the articles does not say. Lupine Proletariat 11:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Windows CE is NOT a trimmed down version. The kernal is written from scratch for embedding. On top of that they have added large parts of the Win32 API - notably leaving out 16-bit, DOS, and non-Unicode stuff. Of course a lot of that higher-level code is probably ported from NT, but all the lower layers are new. Aaron Lawrence 00:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I refer you to the book "Inside Windows CE" in which the system's designers themselves state that after trying to repurpose Win16 and various Win32 systems they "locked themselves in a room" and developed Windows CE from scratch in the space of two months. The system resembles Microsoft Windows in API only. It is an entirely distinct product. It is not a "variant" as the article states. --KJRehberg (talk) 03:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Screenshot

No, No, No, No, No - The screen shot is of the Windows CE 2.11 *BASED* H/PC Professional, not Windows CE 3.0, or even the Windows CE core itself. I'll try and fix it when I have a moment.

It calls itself this way, as shown in the about box:

Microsoft(R) Windows (R) CE, Handheld PC Edition Version 3.0
Core System Version 2.11

--tyomitch 15:11, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

H/PC Version 3.0, not Windows CE 3.0. HPC2000 is H/PC 4.0 based on CE3. HPC Pro is based on CE 2.11. Just as PPC is. --C:Amie (of HPCFactor.com) 23:23, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I know where the confusion comes from; I just worded the caption too poorly at first. Hopefully it's better now. --tyomitch 08:24, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Looks great from where I'm standing. Might be worth moving it to a H/PC Pro article and putting a true Windows CE core OS graphic in there though. --C:Amie (of HPCFactor.com) 23:42, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I wish I had one, but all I could find was this Jupiter thing. Obsolete OS's are always hard to find, especially those special-purpose ones like WinCE. --tyomitch 09:19, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh, so you don't actually have a H/PC? --C:Amie (of HPCFactor.com) 13:40, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Don't you mean that all the screenshots at HPCFactor.com are taken off actual H/PC screens? I thought that you used emulators for your shots, just like I did. --tyomitch 14:27, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

The vast majority are from live devices. The CE4.1 ones are Emulator. The CE5 was an x86 'play' build that I ran up and booted onto a prototype device - hence the odd screen size (It's the 'dream res' for many users, but doesn't exist commercially) - hence I'm in no doubt over the copyright infringement. All other ce versions are real devices, mainly from my personal h/pc collection, but also from fellow Factorites. Kinda hard to run the largest H/PC site on the net without one ^_-. Pay our forums a visit if you're interested in getting one for yourself. --C:Amie 19:59, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh, incidentally, if your screen shot in this document is from the H/PC Pro emulator; then the screen shot is of CE 2.10's core, not 2.11. --C:Amie 20:03, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Complete version history tree

There is a "Relation to Windows Mobile, Pocket PC, and SmartPhone" section, but the relations ar still hard to understand. There is considerable variety of Windows Mobile and Windows CE implementation. Some versions/variations tree can help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.84.64.31 (talk • contribs) 12:02, 13 November 2005 (UTC).

No Dreamcast mention?

Wasn't Windows CE used in the Dreamcast ( R.I.P. )? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.233.106.102 (talk • contribs) 23:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC).

Yes it was the fundimental operating system at work in the DC, however it was effecively a platform release based around CE2.01, not a core os release - it was unlike anything seen in the CE core world until CE5 more or less. So detailed comments show be reserved for the dreamcast page here on wikipedia. --C:Amie 20:55, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

This is not actually true. The Dreamcast was compatible with CE (which is why the CE logo is on the front of the console), but this was strictly on a per-game basis. In other words, certain games (usually ports from the PC) used CE, and came with CE on the disc. The Dreamcast itself did not contain any Microsoft code in ROM. RobLinwood 11:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Only some games uses WinCE in Dreamcast. You may see "Powered by Windows CE" at "Produced or under license of Sega".

You're correct, RobLinwood. There is no WinCE code in the Dreamcast:there instead placed it each game GD-ROM.Junkcops (talk) 02:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Product comparison

Is there somewhere I could find a comparison between the Microsoft CE OS and its competetors? (mostly i'm interested in Palm) Some of the stuff here is pretty technical and over my head, and the interface features of CE are somewhat lacking from this page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.38.32.5 (talk • contribs) 20:19, 1 February 2006 (UTC).

Merging

For those who are wondering, I'm not completely clear if all of these articles warrant merging into the main Windows CE article. However, there needs to be a comprehensive "history" page for Windows CE in the same way that Microsoft Windows references History of Microsoft Windows, which references various version of Windows (e.g. Windows 1.0, Windows 2.0, etc.). Just working on Image:Windows CE Timeline.png was a huge headache, and dictionaries are supposed to remove these kinds of headaches. McNeight 00:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not objecting to getting such a page here on WiKipedia. A better index for CE is required as haivng CE3, CE5 and PPC doesn't do anyone any good, however as all the date information for your (very impressive) graphic was lifted off of HPC:Factor, I can't quite see how it was a headache. - C:Amie 19:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, it wasn't a huge headache, but it certainly took some work to sort out. For example, the difference between CE 3.0 and Handheld PC 3.0 (which is based on CE 2.11) and all other marketing-type "distinctions" (Pocket PC 2000 vs. Pocket PC 2002 vs. Smartphone 2002, etc.). McNeight 20:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose merge, each is a unique release and deserve their own articles like the larger windows releases and the individual OSX releases.Gateman1997 04:49, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Support For the different versions. However, oppose the rest.--Ljlego 01:05, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Isn't PIE a "program" for Windows CE? Just inappropriate to merge, as it is not part of the shell!

Ideally, they should seperate. RN 09:51, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose per RN. —Jared Hunt September 16, 2006, 00:19 (UTC)
• Oppose - MSTCrow 03:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Since it seems to be pretty clear that seperate articles are warranted, I'm removing the tags, but those who say they warrant seperate pages really needs to get on to making CE 2.0 and 4.0 (I believe) articles. Radagast83 18:32, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Priority Inversion

It supports 256 priority levels and provides for priority inversion.

Priority inversion is not a good thing; it's not something you "provide", it's something that wreaks your system when it happens. I imagine this is supposed to mean that CE provides "priority inheritance" or "priority ceilings" for dealing with priority inversion. Or maybe, it just lets priority inversion happen; I don't know.

Explicitly mentioned CE's use of priority inheritance to solve priority inversion problems. --Thalakan 22:56, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Century Edition

I thought CE stood for Century Edition.

That is not true. It doesn't stand for anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.254.40.134 (talk) 09:43, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

RCA Scenium

I believe my Scenium TV has WinCE. It has a browser, but beyond that, I don't know.whicky1978 ^talk 01:47, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

BeOS for Pocket PC

I saw you mentioned there was a port of BeOS for Pocket PC... Could you please tell about this in detail/show your source for this?

--Kralikba 08:54, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Whats CE stands for

I'm having trubles finding whats the CE stands for, if anyone know the answer please add it to the page.

Answer:http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q166915 RN 19:25, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Microsoft likes to make fill in the blank acronyms. Mathiastck 12:07, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

"Microsoft has stated that the ‘CE’ is not an intentional initialism" -- Crap. I have an MS press book about CE development which calls it compact editon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.17.216.130 (talk) 20:43, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I do not know what an initialism is, but my memory says that Windows CE was originally called Windows Compact Edition. Fortunately you have a book that is consistent with my memory. Perhaps the confusion is the result of confusing did not (mean Windows Compact Edition) with does not. Sam Tomato (talk) 18:29, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Sega Dreamcast

According to the Sega Dreamcast page, the Dreamcast did not run Windows CE, but _could_ run it. In that a few games used Windows CE but the game and operating system were on the gamemedium, not the console. Furthermore, according to the forementioned article, the performance when using Windows CE was worse then when using the native Dreamcast operating system. When I read the current Windows CE 3.0 article, I immediatly thought that _the native_ Dreamcast OS was Windows CE 3.0, which it appears not to be.

Define the "native" Dreamcast OS?! Aside from the simple menu for stuff like setting the time and Audio CD player which lived in ROM, it didn't really have one. The menu stuff in ROM wasn't running when you booted off CD/GD-ROM for a game. Some games were built with Windows CE (I know at least one of the Worms games was), but most of the games were pretty much just bare metal, without a proper OS distinct from the game code itself running. Anyhow, not really topical to this page. A CE port to the Dreamcast did exist. I guess that's all that really matters in this context. -- Forkazoo 05:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Are anyone check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6th_generation_consoles#Comparison ? Check "System Software" there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Junkcops (talk • contribs) 02:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Magic Cap -> WinCE?

This article claims that Magic Cap is the foundation of WinCE. Have any of y'all seen any other citations of this assertion? Or verifiable sources? --moof 15:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

yeah. What a reliable source! Brainwashed hatred idiots' faeces

77.52.154.151 (talk) 21:45, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) aka the Children's Machine

It might be worth mentioning that Microsoft is developing a version of CE for this computer. Gary 16:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

What is a "this computer"? Sam Tomato (talk) 18:31, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

GPS devices

Windows CE is the OS on many touchscreen GPS devices from several manufacturers. Transplant GPS uses it on their RightWay product line. Their RW200 model runs Windows CE Core 5.0, according to a label on the back. Mio is another company which uses WinCE. There's a 3rd party freeware addon pack called MioPocket which adds many programs and features to Mio and some other WinCE running GPS devices to convert them into full-featured PDAs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.58.129.132 (talk) 02:39, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Zune

Should any mention of the Zune using Windows CE be in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.81.137.234 (talk) 20:36, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Development Tools - Visual Studio

"Late versions of Microsoft Visual Studio support projects for Windows CE / Windows Mobile, producing executable programs and platform images either as an emulator or attached by cable to an actual mobile device". This sentence is quite ambiguous. Is it saying that the produced executables can be executed on an emulator or on the actual mobile device? Why is "attached by cable" thrown in there? Does the cable have to be attached for the program to run or is this an attempt to cram information regarding the method of transfer into this sentence? --DarrenW (talk) 12:42, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft Windows CE

Is this the right article name? The other windows articles are under Windows XP and Windows Vista for example, not Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Windows Vista. Abours (talk) 18:15, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Defining the difference between WinCE and Windows_Mobile

Request help for the Windows Mobile article. I started a discussion on the Windows Mobile talk page (link) about defining the difference between Windows CE and Windows Mobile. Maybe it's better to continue the discussion on the Windows Mobile page.--Lester 06:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Any similarity with win-9x/me? What about file system support (NTFS, FAT32, etc) ?

Does Win-CE have anything in common with Win-9x/me?

Does Microsoft issue security patches and updates for CE?

What file systems (FAT32, NTFS, etc) does CE support?

Can any application software (Microsoft office, word, excel, Firefox, etc) run on CE? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.231.122.22 (talk) 02:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

i bought my son a mini laptop for xmas and it has windows CE and he loves to play on funny games.com and other game sites. i have set it all up, wifi connected etc all sorted for xmas day, so i checked out the website he likes (funnygames.com) and i cant play any of the games or on any other game site and tried to download flash player but its not compatable with CE, how can my son play games on this system? please help???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.5.143.70 (talk) 10:46, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

No Managed C++?

"The .NET Compact Framework supports a subset of the .NET Framework with projects in C#, and VB.NET, but not Managed C++."
All .net code compiles to the language-independent CIL, so this doesn't make sense. Reference? 66.168.1.178 (talk) 16:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Managed C++ (and its successor, C++/CLI) compiles to mixed mode, not pure CIL. Hence, it is quite possible that this is true. See also mono (software), which also cannot run C++ code. 212.159.69.4 (talk) 19:34, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Microsoft does not like C/C++. Windows was originally developed using C but Microsoft has always made VB easier to use than C/C++, even in ways that could have been applied to C++. Therefore Microsoft did not design their "Managed" software to work with software that use a link editor. The absence of a link editor for .Net makes it incompatible with classic languages such as C++ that require them.

Market share?

Any estimates as to market share either presently or over time? -- Beland (talk) 01:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Could you guys clear the kernel type confusion somehow?

I think that older Windows CE versions had a monolithic kernel and that newer ones have hybrid kernels, but at first glance the description of what kernel type CE has is a bit confusing, could someone please "clear the fog" a bit on this?

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.125.191.144 (talk) 23:32, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

File:Windows-ce50c.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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Nirvara??

Does the fact that the artist of "Smells like Teen Spirit" is misspelled as "Nirvara" in the screenshot bother nobody?

It bothers me immensely. Someone replace this shit.

Misleading image

The image on the right side of the article is heavily misleading. Unsuspecting visitors will assume that that is the default Windows CE interface, which it is not. An image of the default Windows CE desktop would be much more appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.187.23.93 (talk) 14:00, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree and have moved it down. I am surprised no one else did so yet because it's very misleading indeed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Christy35 (talk • contribs) 16:56, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

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Clarify Windows CE cmd.exe and console.dll

User Tabdiukov stated that the screenshot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Microsoft_Windows_CE_Version_3.0_(Build_126)_cmd.exe_Command_Prompt_800x574.png used in this article shows a third-party solution, this is wrong.

This screenshot actually contains 2 software components:

• cmd.exe. This is a command-line program that interprets commands from an input, known as command processor, command interpreter, command interpreter shell or command shell. The Windows CE version of cmd.exe is an optional part (CE_MODULES_CMD) of the Windows CE operating system, available from Windows CE Platform Builder, as well as Windows CE Power Toys; which are all released by Microsoft, not third-party.
• console.dll. This is the console driver for Windows CE, which provides a GUI for users to interact with any command-line program, such as cmd.exe; it is also known as a terminal emulator. This particular console implementation is made by Microsoft, as an optional part (CE_MODULES_CONSOLE) of Windows CE. SymbolicTools did released a replacement console driver for Windows CE, called PocketConsole, that provided much more features than Microsoft's implementation such as colors; however the console implementation in the screenshot is not PocketConsole. Plus the image reference description states cmd.exe only, the console implementation shouldn't be considered in this case.

These 2 components can be found from Windows CE Platform Builder released by Microsoft, particularly the references can be found in source file PUBLIC/COMMON/OAK/FILES/common.bib and PUBLIC/SERVERS/SDK/SAMPLES/TELNETD/telnetd.cpp; unfortunately Microsoft didn't release the source code for cmd.exe and console.dll, only the pre-compiled machine code for each architecture that supported by Windows CE, in PUBLIC/COMMON/OAK/LIB/<ARCH>/.

So please stop saying it "third-party", it was not.

Low power (talk) 09:35, 9 June 2021 (UTC)