Professional Windows® Embedded Compact 7

PLATFORM BUILDER FOR WINDOWS EMBEDDED COMPACT 7

The primary development tool for Windows Embedded Compact 7 is Platform Builder, which provides all the tools needed to develop Compact 7 OS design and components to support an embedded device based on the Compact 7 OS.

You can perform the following Compact 7 development tasks using Platform Builder:

• Develop a Board Support Package.
• Develop a bootloader.
• Develop a device driver.
• Develop a custom OS run-time image.
• Develop a native code application.
• Debug an OS run-time image, a device driver, and an application.

Prior to Windows Embedded CE 6.0(CE 6.0), Platform Builder was a standalone development tool. When CE 6.0 released, it became a plug-in to the Visual Studio 2005 IDE.

For the latest version, Windows Embedded Compact 7, Platform Builder is a plug-in to the VS2008 IDE. As a plug-in to the VS2008 IDE, Platform Builder can take advantage of VS2008’s context-sensitive graphical user interface.

As part of the context-sensitive behavior, the VS2008 IDE shows different features on the menu that are relevant to the current development environment. With limited display space, the context-sensitive user interface scheme provides an efficient method to present relevant and easily accessible features dynamically to the developer, based on the current active development project and tasks. Features not shown on the immediate user interface, in the form of buttons or icons, are accessible from the VS2008 menu. Figure 5-2 shows the VS2008 ...