Upgradeing from Windows CE 3.0 to Windows CE.net 4.2

Go to the HPC update page on this website for the Mobilepro 900C and download the HPC2000 rom flash. Basically copy the files from the zip to the CF card you used to upgrade to CE.NET with and reflash it...or use the C + F method. Look for this:





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snap.jpg (14KB - 1 downloads)

or you could use my site to get either the downgrade or a RAM OS version of it to try it out before flashing. see below:




Edited by cmonex 2009-07-14 5:15 PM

That was a bit silly wasn't it! You asked for all this help to upgrade to CE 4.2 and in the end you decided that you hated it! I do to; it's not an official Handheld PC platform.

Not silly at all, Paspie. What's the harm in trying out CE 4.2 .net to see if you like it, especially since you can do it for free?

Papsie...how do you figure CE.NET is not an official handheld pc platform? Interesting comment...please explain...

He's right, it isn't a handheld pc platform. Licensed Platforms were the ones that included Pocket Office, .net is just the Core OS without any platform components.

I guess it is just how you define the term "platform." Couple that with the assertation that it isn't "official," you can possibly understand my confusion.

If I go to Microsoft.com, I can find numerous documents that each use the term in their own fashion. One suggests there are only two platforms, Windows and Windows CE. The Platforms and Device Center group uses the term to state there are hardware platforms and software platforms. Another document talks about the 4 platforms being Palm, Handheld PC, Handheld PC Pro, and Palm-size. Yet further research shows me another document that adds pocket-pc and hpc2000 as seperate platforms.

And what about Java, Symbian, and Linux....are those platforms?

So Papsie hates CE.NET...okay, I have no problem with that. But I have to wonder why? What does HPC2000 offer that CE.NET doesn't? I can run every program on my 900C (almost) that anyone else can run on HPC2000...and a whole lot more.

So Papsie, this question is for you...why do you hate CE.NET on the Mobilepro?

C:Amie, so your definition of a platform, or at least a handheld pc platform is that it must offer Pocket Office? Does that mean that CE.NET isn't licensed? That all those viewers on my CE.NET machine and alternate programs such as Wordpad and Spreadsheet are not part of the native CE.NET, but added third party applications?

Everyone educate me!

CE .net is not for everybody, Rich. Some people don't want to have to tinker with homebrew DLL files to get every program to work, and they like the built-in PIMs of H/PC 2000. (Some post-H/PC 2000 devices don't even have the databases for PIM data.)

Only loosely is it linked to pocket office, but office the the most visible manifestation of the platform which is why I exampled it.

The parlence of referring to HPC2000 as a platform here (for example) is down to the licensing restrictions and OEM rights controls.

Before CE 2.10, all licensing was done under "platform" terms, and Microsoft had power over the entire process. With 2.10 they split the product, embedded and consumer. They released the Embedded Toolkit (ETK) for 2.10 and 2.11 core OS as a commerical product costing about $3000. CE licenses were about $8.
Against the 2.11 core they released the 3rd H/PC platform, select OEM's only. You couldn't get hold of this stuff with the ETK.

ETK became Platform Builder which many reader will know of with CE 3, and with CE3 we got HPC2000. Again the same licensing restrictions on one and not the other. With CE 4, the Platform Builder licensing came down as low as about $4.

In 2002 I was told under DND by someone in Microsoft that at the time to license PPC2002 you would have to make a minimum 35,000 unit commitment and would be looking at handing over a $million to Microsoft for those licences, so about $28.60 a license. Then the cost of the the development tools and then the hardware creation itself. These license restrictions are why you don't see Joe pulbic making PPC devices.
To create the 'platform' device they give you Platform Builder and then onto that they add the latest in house OEM Adaption Kit, or, OAK. This reconfigures PB with the shell updates of the PPC, Office, stack changes etc.

It is far easier to conceptualise it on the PPC as PPC = Windows CE + Gryphon + Application layer, despite the same appearance between CE core and the H/PC, they were both licensed in completely different ways.

Think of it more in a Linux sense. Linux is the core OS, kernel and a little bit around the edge, but a Linux distribution (platform) is someone who has taken that core and bolted on everything else to make it an out of the box, usable, saleable product e.g. Suse, Ubuntu etc.

Java could be taken in the same light, J2SE, J2EE. J2ME has two sub-platforms, CLDC and CDC, same core, different API's.

Yow...or wow! Both apply. Seems then that Microsoft has everyone by the "short hairs." And this tends to explain the growing popularity of Linux in the community as being the standard OS for new devices...the costs must be tremendously less expensive to produce a new hardware device. And if the developer is smart, he will design the device so that it can be a Windows device should the user desire to install that OS at their own expense.

In the UK the expression is "by the short and curly's".

The cost has been a huge problem for CE devices, which is why they reduced the licensing cost of the CE core considerably, gave away x86 development versions of Platform Builder. They then shared sourced it as part of the same response.

The thing is that no one wants to make commercial devices for the consumer market on the CE core. Yes, yes, I know you people around here love them to bits, but lets be realistic here, you're a minority.

None of the core devices out there give good consumer experiences, Linux dist's do that, WM does that, OSX iPhone does that, the CE dore does not. So I'm afraid that I have to agree with Paspie, but I've been saying this since 1999. It's nothing new.

The problem is that Microsoft doesn't want anyone other than Microsoft to have WM. I have no doubt that they have liberalised their licensing somewhat since my 2002 figures, but if you're about to release an experimental device to market, what's more attractive to develop against, Linux, Chrome OS, Symbian, CE or WM?

It sure isn't the last two.

WM is too expensive to take a risk with and you cannot be sure of the volume, so forget about that. CE's huge failing is that people assume that CE is designed to use the Birch Shell that you all know and see when you build a default MAXALL platform builder image. here's what everyone overlooks - Microsoft never intended for the Birch shell in the commercial CE core to be USED. You're supposed to write your own shell, like WM ontop of the CE kernel - THAT is what Platform Builder is for. No one has done this save for the GPS people.

So because CE doesn't offer a package, the Birch shell hasn't really been changed since 1998, it is the windows 95 shell modified with some xp icond and now a slightly different taskbar graphic. Gee, that's progress? No one is going to release a serious market contender on it, expecially now that we are into fast development, low unit, high spec consumer devices that offer portability and functionality.

Symbian, I don't know well enough, but who actually hears about the latest breakthroughs and next generation features from Symbian devices? I rest my case on that one. It's WM, iPhone and Linux that the mass IT media talk about.

So that leaves Linux and this new Chrome "privacy hell waiting to happen" OS as rapid development contenders. They're refined, out of the box, open, modern and fresh. They also don't have a horrible historic legacy that blights certain aspects of CE - RAS/DUN anyone?

Now, I bet you weren't expecting me of all people so say that!

You're an honest man C:Amie....I'd rather hear the truth, no matter how much it hurts. Heck, I'd be happy probably if they released a new handheld that still ran DOS, as long as it was fast and bug free.

The irony is that Microsoft are far more advanced interface wise than linux or symbian, if they stopped playing games with licensing and opened up the platform to anyone who wanted to play the game, they would have an awful lot more market share.