So, I was googling for some things and I came across this article:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Compaq-EVO-T20-Thin-Client-as-an-MP...
It's basically a guide to using one of those Compaq T20 thin clients as an MP3 player. Honestly, I'm not really sure why a guide would even be needed to do what amounts to installing an NT4 compatible MP3 player and running it but it's still a neat use of the hardware.
But what struck me is this:
"To build this project you will need a Compaq NTe Evo T20
( and its power supply
) - the Win Ce version cannot be used nor can the later XPe models easily
( the XPe Version can play music but music file storage is an Issue and you need to store the music files elsewhere on your network as I have not found a method of getting a Xpe version to read a Local USB pen drive
)."
I vehemently disagree.
Don't let the poster of this guide convince you otherwise. The Windows CE models can be used to do the same thing as this above guide. I've even seen the CE clients being sold for as low as $8 on eBay some days. All that it really requires is some different software and maybe a little CE familiarity.
First, lets tackle the myth that these can't run 3rd party software...
Read your thin client's documentation on pushing updates via TFTP. You will notice some updates include an .exe once extracted. There's your in.
All you really need to do is replace this .exe with another one of your choice like TCPMP or a file browser and point your thin client's update application to it. It will then run your application. You can then run a registry editor or file browser and do whatever you feel like on the device.
To make this easier in the future and ensure your device is always "jailbroken", you can edit your device's registry to run the application you want on startup under HKLM\init by just adding a string with something like Launch60="your.exe".
See:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms901773.aspx
You don't need a desktop OS like NT or Linux and high end models just to play MP3s on a thin client. That's just silly!
To play mp3s, just use the x86 WinCE build of The Core Pocket Media Player
(TCPMP
) found here:
http://www.hpcfactor.com/downloads/tcpmp/
This plays anything from OGG to FLAC and has pretty decent playlist support. The CE editions of these thin clients already ship VNC so you can use that to remote control it. With this, they can even play videos!
Want to have even more fun?
Install PocketDOS on your CE client and run your favorite DOS applications from yesteryear.
Now, the sky is the limit as to what you can do with your "crippled" CE client. You are only limited by your imagination, your compiler, OS version, available open source projects
(not much software for x86 CE
) and CE itself. No Linux, no flashing, no desktop Windows and no viruses in sight.
Hope this helps someone.
Edited by TFGBD 2014-11-20 4:08 AM