Windows CE 6.0
Encyclopedia
Windows Embedded CE 6.0 (codenamed "Yamazaki") is the sixth major release of Windows
Embedded
Operating System
targeted to enterprise specific tools such as industrial controllers and consumer electronics devices like digital cameras. CE 6.0 features a kernel which supports 32,768 processes, up from the 32 process limit of previous versions. Each process receives 2GB
of virtual address space, up from 32MB
.
Windows Embedded CE 6.0 was released on November 1, 2006, and includes partial source code
. The OS currently serves as the basis for the Zune HD
. Windows Mobile 6.5 is based on Windows CE 5.2. Windows Phone 7
, the latest major release of the Windows Phone
operating system, is powered by Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3; although Windows Phone 7 is also utilizing Windows Embedded Compact 7 features.
s and serves as the base platform for the Zune HD and Windows Phone 7. CE 6.0 R3 includes the following new features and capabilities :
Note that these features listed here are not all specific to Windows Phone 7 or the Zune HD.
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
Embedded
Embedded system
An embedded system is a computer system designed for specific control functions within a larger system. often with real-time computing constraints. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including hardware and mechanical parts. By contrast, a general-purpose computer, such as a personal...
Operating System
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
targeted to enterprise specific tools such as industrial controllers and consumer electronics devices like digital cameras. CE 6.0 features a kernel which supports 32,768 processes, up from the 32 process limit of previous versions. Each process receives 2GB
Gigabyte
The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...
of virtual address space, up from 32MB
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
.
Windows Embedded CE 6.0 was released on November 1, 2006, and includes partial source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
. The OS currently serves as the basis for the Zune HD
Zune HD
The Zune HD is a portable media player in the Zune product family released on September 15, 2009 by Microsoft. It is a direct competitor with the Apple iPod and iPhone series of mobile devices. It was initially released in 16 and 32 GB capacities. A 64 GB version was released on April 9, 2010...
. Windows Mobile 6.5 is based on Windows CE 5.2. Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...
, the latest major release of the Windows Phone
Windows Phone
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...
operating system, is powered by Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3; although Windows Phone 7 is also utilizing Windows Embedded Compact 7 features.
New features
- Some System components (such as filesystem, GWES (Graphics, Windowing, and Events Server) , device driverDevice driverIn computing, a device driver or software driver is a computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a hardware device....
manager) have been moved to the kernel space. - The system components which now run in kernel have been converted from EXEEXEEXE is the common filename extension denoting an executable file in the DOS, OpenVMS, Microsoft Windows, Symbian, and OS/2 operating systems....
s to DLLDLLDLL may refer to:* Data link layer, a layer in the OSI network architecture model* Delay-locked loop, a device to reduce clock skew in digital circuits* Doubly linked list, a data structure in computer programming...
s, which get loaded into kernel space. - New Virtual memoryVirtual memoryIn computing, virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels. This technique virtualizes a computer architecture's various forms of computer data storage , allowing a program to be designed as though there is only one kind of memory, "virtual" memory, which...
model. The lower 2GB is the processProcess (computing)In computing, a process is an instance of a computer program that is being executed. It contains the program code and its current activity. Depending on the operating system , a process may be made up of multiple threads of execution that execute instructions concurrently.A computer program is a...
VM space and is private per process. The upper 2GB is the kernel VM space. - New device driver modelDevice driverIn computing, a device driver or software driver is a computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a hardware device....
that supports both User mode and Kernel mode drivers. - The 32 process limit has been raised to 32,768 processes.
- The 32 megabyte virtual memory limit has been raised to the total virtual memory (Up to 2GB of private VM is available per process).
- The Platform Builder IDEIntegrated development environmentAn integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...
is integrated into Microsoft Visual StudioMicrosoft Visual StudioMicrosoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment from Microsoft. It is used to develop console and graphical user interface applications along with Windows Forms applications, web sites, web applications, and web services in both native code together with managed code for all...
2005 as plugin (thus forcing the client to obtain Microsoft Visual StudioMicrosoft Visual StudioMicrosoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment from Microsoft. It is used to develop console and graphical user interface applications along with Windows Forms applications, web sites, web applications, and web services in both native code together with managed code for all...
2005 as well), allowing a single development environment for both platform and application development. - Read-only support for UDFUniversal Disk FormatUniversal Disk Format is an implementation of the specification known as ISO/IEC 13346 and ECMA-167 and is an open vendor-neutral file system for computer data storage for a broad range of media. In practice, it has been most widely used for DVDs and newer optical disc formats, supplanting ISO 9660...
2.5 filesystem. - Support for Microsoft's exFATExFATexFAT is a proprietary, patent-pending file system designed especially for USB flash drives. Developed by Microsoft, it is supported in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 with update KB955704, Windows Embedded CE 6.0, Windows Vista with Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows...
filesystem. - 802.11i (WPA2) and 802.11e (QoS) wireless standards, and multiple radio support.
- CE 6.0 works with x86, ARM, SH4 and MIPS based processor architectures.
- New Cellcore components to enable devices to easily make data connections and initiate voice calls through cellular networks.
New Features in R3
Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 was finalized in September 2009 for OEMOEM
OEM means the original manufacturer of a component for a product, which may be resold by another company.OEM may also refer to:-Computing:* OEM font, or OEM-US, the original character set of the IBM PC, circa 1981...
s and serves as the base platform for the Zune HD and Windows Phone 7. CE 6.0 R3 includes the following new features and capabilities :
| Silverlight for Windows Embedded | The power of Silverlight brought to Windows Embedded CE to create rich applications and user interfaces |
| Internet Explorer Embedded | Internet Explorer with multi-touch panning and zooming capabilities and a customizable interface to optimize the browsing experience on devices |
| Flash Lite | Browser plug in to render rich media websites (not available in Windows Phone 7) |
| Touch and Gesture | Plug-in engine to enable natural input capabilities such as four-point multi-touch, advance gestures and complex 3D animations. |
| Connection Manager | Infrastructure technology to manage multiple network interfaces on the device |
| Microsoft Office and PDF Viewers | Applications to render Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Adobe PDF content on the device |
Note that these features listed here are not all specific to Windows Phone 7 or the Zune HD.
External links
- History of Windows CE, by HPC:Factor with screenshots of the various versions.
- Bor-Ming Hsieh and Sue Loh: 3rd Generation Kernel for Windows CE — Channel 9 Interview.
- Juggs Ravalia: Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Device Driver Model — Channel 9 Interview.
- Mike Hall's WEBlog.
- Windows CE blog from e-con.