Windows Mobile

NTFSD
1

Has anyone delved into kernel mode for Windows Mobile? Is it more like the
NT platform or more like the 9x platform?

2

I think that it is Windows CE. It is supported by Visual Studio.

Bill Wandel

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Neil Weicher
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2012 5:16 PM
To: Windows File Systems Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntfsd] Windows Mobile

Has anyone delved into kernel mode for Windows Mobile? Is it more like the
NT platform or more like the 9x platform?

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3

“Windows Mobile” is a modern, catchy, marketable name for what was once
called “Windows CE”. I was at a conference, I think a WinHEC, some years
ago, at a CE session because I was curious about it. Someone in the
audience asked the speaker, “What does ‘CE’ stand for?” and was told that
“It doesn’t stand for anything”, which is utter nonsense; I had been at
another Microsoft conference sone years before (I think a PDC, back when
they were worth attending) when it was announced, and we were explicitly
told that it stood for “Consumer Electronics”.

CE/Mobile is quite idiosyncratic, bearing a superficial resemblance to the
Win32 API but is a “sideset” of it (that is, neither a superset or
subset). Its driver model, from research I did a decade ago,
superficially resembles the old NT driver model of that time; I have no
idea if PnP/Power have been added, but I no longer care. Also, I doubt
that there is a KMDF-like framework available for it. From discussions I
saw on a CE newsgroup I lurked in, it is similar enough to Win32 and Win32
device drivers that someone who knows either user-level or kernel-level
programming in Win32 knows just enough to get into trouble when the
idiosyncrasies rear their ugly heads. There IS a version of MFC, and back
when I spent most of my time in the now-defunct MFC newsgroup, and we were
always getting questions of the form “How do I…” or “Why can’t I…” and
everyone would give an answer (thinking it was a newbie question) only to
have the OP come back with, “Yes, I know that, but I’m using [CE/Mobile]”.
From what I’ve seen of the driver subsystem, it’s probably true at that
level also.

CE is supported by VS and there are even some platform simulators included
so you can test your code more easily using only your desktop.
joe

I think that it is Windows CE. It is supported by Visual Studio.

Bill Wandel

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Neil Weicher
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2012 5:16 PM
To: Windows File Systems Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntfsd] Windows Mobile

Has anyone delved into kernel mode for Windows Mobile? Is it more like
the
NT platform or more like the 9x platform?

NTFSD is sponsored by OSR

For our schedule of debugging and file system seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

NTFSD is sponsored by OSR

For our schedule of debugging and file system seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

4

wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntfsd…
> “Windows Mobile” is a modern, catchy, marketable name for what was once
> called “Windows CE”. I was at a conference, I think a WinHEC, some years

Thanks for the reply. I guess I should have asked how one creates a FSFD
for Windows Mobile? Long ago I heard that the kernel was closer to the 9x
model than the NT model, but I don’t know if that is true.

5

> Has anyone delved into kernel mode for Windows Mobile? Is it more like the

NT platform or more like the 9x platform?

Windows CE.

100% another kernel from both desktop Windows - called NK.EXE.

The kernel is not extendable (except by the OAL kit which is CE’s name for HAL), is realtime and supports interrupt threads.

Drivers are DLLs loaded to devices.exe process, while the video driver is loaded to gwes.exe - the server for USER/GDI.

Driver model is 100% another from NT, except NDIS which is 99% same. The entry points of the driver and of the filesystem are documented.

Emulates a good deal of Win32 around it. Supports MFC and .NET (called .NET Compact).

Supported by Visual Studio.

Given the MS’s shift to WinPhone 7 and then Win8 - it is a dying platform.

–
Maxim S. Shatskih
Windows DDK MVP
xxxxx@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com

6

On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 2:07 PM, Maxim S. Shatskih
wrote:
> Given the MS’s shift to WinPhone 7 and then Win8 - it is a dying platform.
>

Hmm, Windows Phone 7 is based on Windows CE 6.0 R3, right?

If in the future, Microsoft will switch the mobile phone platform to
Windows 8, then it is indeed cast some doubts on the longevity
of Windows CE platform.

On the other hand, I think there are still many device out ther
using Windows CE platform. In our industry (Industrial Automation),
there are still many Visualization product (industrial display) using
Windows CE platform.

My home set-top box also runs Windows CE and needs quite
sometime to power up. In one of our product we have the same
problem and we have to ditch Windows CE to another RTOS
since we need the Ethernet link to be up within 500ms. With
the success of that RTOS, we are in the process of ditching
Windows CE altogether in our product (Industrial Communication
adapter for I/O modules).

–
Xiaofan

7

> Hmm, Windows Phone 7 is based on Windows CE 6.0 R3, right?

The kernel is well-hidden there, and the only programming technology supported is WPF/SilverLight.

–
Maxim S. Shatskih
Windows DDK MVP
xxxxx@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com

8

“Xiaofan Chen” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntfsd…
…
> If in the future, Microsoft will switch the mobile phone platform to
> Windows 8, then it is indeed cast some doubts on the longevity
> of Windows CE platform.

Probably only people that have access to WOA beta know the answer
(but they won’t tell us because of their NDAs).
From what I learned about CE v.6 and WinCE on ARM in general, WOA
may be very well based on CE6 - since it has been designed to support
this kind of platforms and is already at home on the ARM arch and
has a ready toolchain.
–pa