Platform Builder 6 and Windows 7 64 bit

A fresh install of VS2005 and Platform Builder 6 on a Windows 7 64 bit does not work.
To save you some trouble of searching the web go straight to the following post and read it: link


Read MichaelH's solution at the end. It works.

QFE mess?

With the release of Windows CE R3 the CE Updates tool ceased to function. Add the fact that the instructions on Microsoft's website were confusing at first you get a mess when it comes to updates.
To check what updates you have installed, you can open the folder %WINCEDrive%\Wince600\updates


By the way, the easiest way to get past the confusion with R3 is to just install the yearly update of 2009 after you install R3 and that's that.

Silverlight Error codes in String format

I recently had to debug a simple Silverlight application and found myself looking for the error code one Silverlghit function gave me. Soooo I ended up creating this function that can help you when you debug your application. Nothing fancy, it will just save you time doing the same:

TCHAR*    GetSilverLightErrorString(
HRESULT retcode)
{
    static TCHAR    pszUnknownMessage[50];
    static    TCHAR    pszErrorStrings[][50] =
    {
        {TEXT("XR_E_ABSTRACT_BASE_CLASS")},//0
        {TEXT("XR_E_COLLECTION_DUPLICATE_NAME")},//1
        {TEXT("XR_E_COLLECTION_ELEMENT_ALREADY_ASSOCIATED")},//2
        {TEXT("XR_E_DUPLICATE_REGISTRATION")},//3
        {TEXT("XR_E_ELEMENT_NOT_CREATED")},//4
        {TEXT("XR_E_ELEMENT_NOT_FOUND")},//5
        {TEXT("XR_E_INVALID_OBJECT")},//6
        {TEXT("XR_E_INVALID_PROPERTY")},//7
        {TEXT("XR_E_INVALID_ROOT_FOR_CREATING_HOST")},//8
        {TEXT("XR_E_INVALID_STATE")},//9
        {TEXT("XR_E_INVALID_THREAD_ACCESS")},//10
        {TEXT("XR_E_NOT_INITIALIZED")},//11
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_ATTRIBUTE_OUT_OF_RANGE")},//12
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY")},//13
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_FAILED_RESOURCE_FIND")},//14
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_INVALID_ATTRIBUTE")},//15
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_INVALID_ATTRIBUTE_VALUE")},//16
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_INVALID_CONTENT")},//17
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_INVALID_PROPERTY")},//18
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_MISSING_DEFAULT_NAMESPACE")},//19
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_MULTIPLE_PROPERTY_ELEMENT_VALUES")},//20
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_RESOURCE_KEY_AND_NAME_SET")},//21
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_TEXT_CONTENT_UNSUPPORTED")},//22
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_UNKNOWN_ATTRIBUTE")},//23
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_UNKNOWN_ELEMENT")},//24
        {TEXT("XR_E_PARSER_UNKNOWN_NAMESPACE")},//25
        {TEXT("XR_E_STORYBOARD_BEGIN_ANIMATION_COMPOSITION")},//26
        {TEXT("XR_E_STORYBOARD_BEGIN_INCOMPATIBLE_TYPE")},//27
        {TEXT("XR_E_STORYBOARD_BEGIN_INVALID_KEYTIME")},//28
        {TEXT("XR_E_STORYBOARD_BEGIN_INVALID_PROPERTY")},//29
        {TEXT("XR_E_STORYBOARD_BEGIN_INVALID_TARGET")},//30
        {TEXT("XR_E_STORYBOARD_BEGIN_NO_TARGET")},//31
        {TEXT("XR_E_STORYBOARD_MODIFY_ACTIVE_ANIMATION")},//32
        {TEXT("XR_E_STORYBOARD_MUST_BE_ROOT ")},//33
        {TEXT("XR_E_STORYBOARD_SKIPTOFILL_NO_DURATION")}//34
    };

    switch(retcode)
    {
        case XR_E_ABSTRACT_BASE_CLASS:
            return pszErrorStrings[0];
        case XR_E_COLLECTION_DUPLICATE_NAME:
            return pszErrorStrings[1];
        case XR_E_COLLECTION_ELEMENT_ALREADY_ASSOCIATED:
            return pszErrorStrings[2];
        case XR_E_DUPLICATE_REGISTRATION:
            return pszErrorStrings[3];
        case XR_E_ELEMENT_NOT_CREATED:
            return pszErrorStrings[4];
        case XR_E_ELEMENT_NOT_FOUND:
            return pszErrorStrings[5];
        case XR_E_INVALID_OBJECT:
            return pszErrorStrings[6];
        case XR_E_INVALID_PROPERTY:
            return pszErrorStrings[7];
        case XR_E_INVALID_ROOT_FOR_CREATING_HOST:
            return pszErrorStrings[8];
        case XR_E_INVALID_STATE:
            return pszErrorStrings[9];
        case XR_E_INVALID_THREAD_ACCESS:
            return pszErrorStrings[10];
        case XR_E_NOT_INITIALIZED:
            return pszErrorStrings[11];
        case XR_E_PARSER_ATTRIBUTE_OUT_OF_RANGE:
            return pszErrorStrings[12];
        case XR_E_PARSER_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY:
            return pszErrorStrings[13];
        case XR_E_PARSER_FAILED_RESOURCE_FIND:
            return pszErrorStrings[14];
        case XR_E_PARSER_INVALID_ATTRIBUTE:
            return pszErrorStrings[15];
        case XR_E_PARSER_INVALID_ATTRIBUTE_VALUE:
            return pszErrorStrings[16];
        case XR_E_PARSER_INVALID_CONTENT:
            return pszErrorStrings[17];
        case XR_E_PARSER_INVALID_PROPERTY:
            return pszErrorStrings[18];
        case XR_E_PARSER_MISSING_DEFAULT_NAMESPACE:
            return pszErrorStrings[19];
        case XR_E_PARSER_MULTIPLE_PROPERTY_ELEMENT_VALUES:
            return pszErrorStrings[20];
        case XR_E_PARSER_RESOURCE_KEY_AND_NAME_SET:
            return pszErrorStrings[21];
        case XR_E_PARSER_TEXT_CONTENT_UNSUPPORTED:
            return pszErrorStrings[22];
        case XR_E_PARSER_UNKNOWN_ATTRIBUTE:
            return pszErrorStrings[23];
        case XR_E_PARSER_UNKNOWN_ELEMENT:
            return pszErrorStrings[24];
        case XR_E_PARSER_UNKNOWN_NAMESPACE:
            return pszErrorStrings[25];
        case XR_E_STORYBOARD_BEGIN_ANIMATION_COMPOSITION:
            return pszErrorStrings[26];
        case XR_E_STORYBOARD_BEGIN_INCOMPATIBLE_TYPE:
            return pszErrorStrings[27];
        case XR_E_STORYBOARD_BEGIN_INVALID_KEYTIME:
            return pszErrorStrings[28];
        case XR_E_STORYBOARD_BEGIN_INVALID_PROPERTY:
            return pszErrorStrings[29];
        case XR_E_STORYBOARD_BEGIN_INVALID_TARGET:
            return pszErrorStrings[30];
        case XR_E_STORYBOARD_BEGIN_NO_TARGET:
            return pszErrorStrings[31];
        case XR_E_STORYBOARD_MODIFY_ACTIVE_ANIMATION:
            return pszErrorStrings[32];
        case XR_E_STORYBOARD_MUST_BE_ROOT:
            return pszErrorStrings[33];
        case XR_E_STORYBOARD_SKIPTOFILL_NO_DURATION:
            return pszErrorStrings[34];
        default:
            _stprintf(pszUnknownMessage,TEXT("UNKNOWN_ERROR (0x%x)"), retcode);
            return pszUnknownMessage;
    }
}

This code is provided as is without ANY guarantees and might be mssing a few error codes.

How to install Windows CE

Today I needed to install a clean installation of Windows CE 6.0 R2. My problem was I was not sure what QFEs (windows CE updates) I need to install afterward. The problem is that now you primarily get information about R3.

I was getting really frustrated and was thinking of writing a detailed post with the needed QFE for each release when I found this post by Mike Hall:
http://blogs.msdn.com/mikehall/archive/2009/06/10/steps-needed-to-install-windows-embedded-ce-6-0-from-scratch.aspx



Thanks to Mike I saved at least 2 hours of digging through the net.


Hope this will make his post pop up faster in the search engines.

A nice resource googled

 am debugging a RIL dirver now in Windows CE. Check out this short table of error codes for the GSM:
CME Error codes

Google does not find the Embedded Silverlight documentation

I don't why Microsoft does this, but unitl this moment doing the following search only leads to Valter's blog. On Bing you do get to the MSDN documentation...

By the way here is the link to the documentation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee502198.aspx


Weird and hurts only the developers.

UPDATE:
apparently it just took Google some time to crawl it. Now the documentation is available on Google as well.

What I hate most about Platform Builder

This list of things will be updated from time to time:

1. When you open a new OSDesign and run Sysgen only to find out that the default settings are for Debug and now you need to wait another 20 minures while Sysgening the Release build.
2. When Platform Builder hits a DEBUGCHK in Debug mode it automatically opens the assembly window.
3. ...