I had the pleasure of attending the DEMO MANIA session on Windows Embedded Standard 2011, also called “Quebec” or plain Windows 7 Embedded.

Due to the fact that it was a DEMO session, the amount information given were minimal and the visual presentation was in focus.

The embedded team has come up with a treat for all of us technical guys. They have prepared Windows 7 for embedded devices, and in such a way that when you boot up for the first time, a menu appears to let you chose which Device drivers you need for the system (the ones it did not find it self). After this, the system let’s you pick and chose your desired configuration, meaning that you now have a chance to deselect IE, or just the parts of IE you don’t want… And off course not only IE, but every little piece of Windows 7 you select and deselect as of your likings (That is WOW!). In Short it is a full Windows 7 with all features, (silverlight etc.) where you deselect features to make it fit your device and wishes.

I got a hold of an early preview version of Windows Standard 2011 and when I got home, I immediately started to install the version onto my Asus Eee 901 just to see the how it worked! And you can really optimize a laptop with this kind of version :-)

But…. It was brought to my attention that it was illegal to install Windows Embedded Standard on a Notebook, and therefore I have now erased it, and cannot show any pictures of my progress with the adventure (I will not even explain about it).

Windows 7 Embedded Standard 2011 as OS for Windows Mobile?

But with all of this power at your hands, and the statements from Microsoft that the future of their mobile phones will run on at least 1GHz processors…. Hmmm wouldn’t be weird if Microsoft didn’t use this as a new operating system (OS) for Their Mobile products too?? Let me answer that! Yes it would.. With this product at their hands, Microsoft is finallly able to have – One Operating System For All platforms – A vision they had for years, and a vision Mr. Steve Balmer talked about on his last visit in Denmark.

And here is the more technical information:

Processor Architecture
Support for multiple processor architectures
· x86
· x64

Tools
Improved developer experiences:
· Wizard experience with Image Build Wizard (IBW)
· Advanced experience with Image Configuration Editor (ICE)

Componentization
The right level of granularity to build special-purpose devices
· Hundreds of feature packages based on latest innovations for Windows 7
· Embedded enabling features such as Enhanced Write Filter, File Based Write Filter, Registry Filter, Hibernate Once Resume Many, and Custom Shell to fulfill embedded-specific requirements
· Large number of driver sets for compatibility with growing set of device hardware and peripherals

Application Compatibility
Applications and drivers for Windows 7 can work on Windows Embedded Standard 2011 without difficult, expensive, and time-consuming porting effort

Enterprise Connectivity and Manageability
Support for Active Directory, Domain Join, Group Policies, Network Access Protection, and IPv6 to enable connectivity and manageability with Windows Server, System Center Configuration Manager, System Center Operations Manager, and Windows Server Update Services

User Experiences
Rich, interactive user experiences with Windows Aero and Windows Touch and Gesture. A stable framework Windows Presentation Foundation for building new and innovative experiences.

Video resources

 http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles/Windows-Embedded-Past-Present-and-Future/

Websites

 http://windowsembedded.com

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/ce/default.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsembedded/standard/default.aspx

Blogs

Olivier Bloch - http://blogs.msdn.com/obloch/

http://blogs.msdn.com/mikehall

http://blogs.msdn.com/jcoyne

“All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go……”

I’m am very exited to get to Tech ED Berlin 2009 (which is now sold out!). I’ve been trying to wrap my head around what track and sessions I should attend, because there are MANY! to chose from. As a person I believe it’s importent to focus on the fact that this is a unique opportunity to evolve your knowledge. Therefore I have chosen to expand my choice of sessions to not just include areas of immediate focus, but to also include areas of common interest.

I spend a few hours on the track & sessions page, figuring out pros and cons on sessions that unfortunately collided on day and hours. But I think I hit an amazing agenda for the entire week:

The one session that I look really forward to is Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Kernel Changes!! I’ve been following the discussion on the internet, and following the videos from Channel 9 on Windows 7.

The official note on the session leaves me with the impression that this is going to be really good:

“This session goes beneath the hood of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to describe and demonstrate the key changes in the kernel. Topics include: scalability improvements such as removal of the global scheduler lock, support for more than 64 logical processors, and user mode scheduling, virtual service accounts, core parking and timer coalescing for power efficiency, trigger-started services, core architecture changes to modularize Windows ("Minwin") and more.”

And the embedded part with demo’s are also something to be looking forward to:

“This demo-packed session presents all sorts of devices, tools, and technologies used in today's and tomorrow's embedded projects. If you want to learn how Windows Embedded can be used to build stunning devices or if you are just a geek, you can't miss this session.”

And yes, I’m a geek!

I’m really looking forward to this mix of Desktop, embedded, web technology and architechture sessions. And not forgetting all the demo presentations that makes this Tech ED a must-see event.

Appart from all of these sessions, I will be on the lookout for the expo areas, where I will get a chance to have a look at what all other developers are doing right now.

I’m also loking forward to meeting all the other Microsoft Student Partners from all over the world. And this will ofcourse introduce them to my network, and me to theirs.

If you find the subjects listet above interesting, then I will attempt to blog on every single one of them, and hopefully provide you with awesome pictures from the whole event. If you find subjects of interests missing in my list, I will suggest that you have a look at some of the other Microsoft Student Partner blogs. We are well represented at the Tech ED event, and maybe they will attend more convenient subjects. You can find links to there blogs on the left column.

Just an appitizer for you all.....

The firstthing to do is to download the .NET Micro Framework SDK (it is in versions from2.0 to 3.0) The 3.0 version requires you to register with your live id beforebeing able to download, but it is worth it. The 2.0 version does not work withVisual Studio 2008 (not yet!?) but version 3.0 does work.

When you have downloaded the .NET Micro Framework  all you have to do is execute the installer  andthe work should be done for you, all you have to do is follow the installationwizard.

And now the.NET Micro Framework is fully integrated with your Visual Studio, and you areready to start developing your embedded projects with .NET Micro Framework. Ifyou should run into problems, make sure that.

If youstill cannot get things to work, you are welcome to send me an email (viacontact link) or you can read from MSDN

The .NETMicro Framework brings the effectiveness of managed code into the world of embeddedsystems, by the means of using (among other things) objects to store thedifficult and tedious tasks of sending output/input to specific pins, and a wholelot more. I hope to give an insight into what the .NET Micro Framework is, andin later blogs provide you with exiting code examples of how I go about usingthe .NET Micro Framework to develop some cool applications on an embedded system. 

What is the .NET Micro Framework?

The .NETMicro Framework is a “bootable runtime”, which means that it provides a subset(a subset selected by Microsoft to provide most services that is needed to run embeddedapplications on small devices) of a full blown operating system (from now oncalled OS). This subset consists of resource management, execution control andI/O.  Having this subset, it allows the.NET Micro Framework to run directly on the hardware without the need of atraditional OS (although, it can also run on top of an OS) , this is achievedby adding things like interrupt handling, threading, process management, heapmanagement and other traditional OS functions, into the .NET Micro Framework.By creating a bootable runtime the services needed by the application areprovided through the runtime and framework, and directly to the application,and thereby being independent of a traditional OS (this abstraction level iscalled PAL, Platform Adaption Layer). This means that the .NET Micro Framework isrunning on an optimized small footprint (20-30K, core) hardware abstractionlayer (HAL) in place of a traditional OS.  

The core ofthe .NET Micro Framework is the CLR (Common Language Runtime), which is anoptimized managed code runtime.  The factthat the CLR supports managed code, allows for rapid development and for safeexecution of application code by the means of modern tools (Visual Studio .NET)and programming language(C#).

What tools can be used for developing with the.NET Micro Framework?

You canutilize the strengths of Visual Studio .NET 2005 (standard, professional, orteam suite) or 2008, to develop your applications. You do not even need anyhardware to run or test the code on (although the hardware is at some pointneeded to deploy your solutions to). When installing the .NET Micro Framework,the installer provides the needed resources to the Visual Studio environment,and it also provides you with an emulator to run your code against.

Download the .NET Micro Framework

What is the .NET Micro Framework targeting?

It istargeted against a new generation of less expensive and more power efficient 32-bitprocessors, where “Fastexecution” lets a process run in smaller duty cycles and thus spend more time in power-efficientsleep modes. (for complete specs. Please visit MSDN).

What’s next?

I will provide a small tutorial on how to get the Visual Studio environment up andrunning, but will not go in to much detail on that subject.

And then it’son to some code. I will setup an example of how to write a first program, and Iwill try to explain my thoughts to the best I can. I do know that things may sometimesseem unclear, and if there is some information, or something I haven’texplained well enough, please bring it to my attention and I will do my best togive a better explanation or provide you with more detailed information.