Finally arrived in Belin last night. No, I did not make it to the Brandenburg Gate, due to heavy rain and late arrival. Nevertheless, I could hear the fireworks. :-)

Btw. my session on Powershell and WES has been moved to Friday morning, giving me the unique opportunity to give two morning presentations in row.

Therefore, no partying tonight - tech check is tommorrow 8.00 am.

 

Alexander   

It is there!

Go and find out what the newest release is going to look like.

Looks like quite some fun. :-)

 

Alexander

Yes, this is bad and it happens when all devices have the SCCM client included in the image. Meaning that it was cloned together with the image onto the target device. The device ID normally is generated during setup of the client.

Here is a snippet from the SCCM device manager documentation that helps you out:

 

Alternative unique device ID functionality

All currently available consumer Pocket PC devices support a unique hardware ID that the Device Management Agent uses as the SMS unique identifier, and the device management functionality works as designed.

Certain industrial devices do not report a unique device ID, so multiple devices share the SMS unique identifier, rendering the devices individually unmanageable by SMS. The result is that only a single device discovery data record (DDR) appears in the SMS Administrator console, even though multiple devices are successfully communicating with the SMS device management point.

WORKAROUND: Use alternative Device Client registry settings to change DeviceID behavior. To do this, create a registry script or use other means to change two registry keys on the device as follows:

Create this registry value: HKLM\Comm\ApplicationDownload\SimDeviceID with a type DWORD.

Set the value to one of the following (values 1-3 change the behavior of the Device Client Agent):

Value 0 : Default hardware ID functionality
Value 1 : Generate an ID based on a random numbers.
Value 2 : Generate ID from MAC address, if this fails return ID "NO_MAC_ADDR_DEVICE"
Value 3 : Generate ID from MAC address, if this fails generate an ID based on random numbers.

Set this value as a blank string to trigger the Device Client Agent to reset the DeviceID: HKLM\Comm\ApplicationDownload\DeviceID

These steps can be carried our prior to device installation, or subsequent to Device Client Agent installation, even when the Agent is running. If the Agent is running, then the next HTTP request to the device management point will generate a new device ID. The Device Client Agent will set the new device in the ‘DeviceID’ registry value, and not change this value again.

Caution Use of options 2 or 3, blanking of the device ID and subsequent reset of the device might result in the Device Client Agent being unable to acquire a MAC address because device networking components are still initializing. It is recommended that options 2 or 3 are not used in a reset scenario.

 

 

Alexander

 

 

I have done two new Webcasts for MSDN in Germany about Windows EmbeddedStandard 2009 and Device Profile Web Services on .NET MF devices.

Check them out at: http://www.microsoft.com/germany/msdn/webcasts/finder/default.mspx?g=status&o=&s=&presenter=Alexander+Wechsler&webcasttyp=&level=&locale=&technology=&q=

 

Language is German!

 

Alexander

In an industrial automation project we had Windows CE 5.0 devices managed via SCCM.

The problem was, that any time we installed a software distribution package via SCC the state got lost after a while and SCCM reapplied already installed packages to the devices.

As quite common for industrial automation controllers the Windows CE image was loaded from a CF card into RAM during boot. 

It turned out that this is the reason for trouble.

After loading the NK.bin image a file system is created in RAM. This file system is used by the SCCM device management client to store the installation state of the SW packages in a file called \windows\dms-inv.dat. This file, of course, gets lost when systems are bootet, because the RAM is cleared doing this. 

Unfortunately the device management client is not flexible enough to be installed onto the CF and therefore we had to find a workaround.

Each SCCM SW package now saves the dms-inv.dat file to the CF card after an installation. This file is copied back at each OS boot into the \windows folder via a Autoexec.cmd batch file.

This works but is not a "great" solution to be proud of.

It would be much better to store the installation state under a key in the persistent registry, which resides on the CF card in any case.

Maybe a good idea for the next CE version? I'll try to ask the guys in Redmond.

 

Alexander

I am currently running Windows 7 Beta on my Dell Mini 9 Netbook. I do not have all the drivers working, yet. Afew devices such as WLAN are still a bit stubborn,but the rest looks great.

I have the impression that the system even runs faster than with XP Home and even offers the aero UI effects.

For me a clear sign that there has been a hughe performance leap compared to VISTA.

I am looking forward to have the new Embedded OS succeding Windows Embedded Standard based on this platform!

 

Alexander

there is help! All sessions are available now.

You can find mine on WES here: http://www.microsoft.com/germany/msdn/events/archiv/technicalsummit08/library.aspx?id=msdn_de_30110

But there is more interesting stuff for example Frank Prengels session on Silverlight Mobile:

 

Have fun!

Alexander

TechEd EMEA 2008 is closing down slowly. What an amazing week.

It was great fun to see the Windows Embedded topics first time beneath big names such as Sharepoint in the conference Agenda!

There was also time to mix and mingle with people from all over the world, who (well some of them) did even make it to my sessions.

Here is proof in the blog of the ElektroBit guys. I had great fun presenting to an energized and inspired crowd.

 

In addition, I had very good talks with the Microsoft collegues from Redmond, France, UK, Spain, Switzerland, Germany,... (somehow lost track on this) and was amazed to see a Miele washing machine on stage for the first time ever in a developers conference!
Frank Prengel (Microsoft) and Stefan Hoppe (Beckhoff) did an outstanding job to present the future of communication between connected devices: Device Profile Web Services (DPWS).

We also had a great Windows Embedded Community event right next to the TechED venue on Tuesday evening. Damian Barnet and Harald Kraschina (ElektroBit) were so kind to post some photos.

 

If You have missed TechEd EMEA, well, there is a chance to catch up, at least a little bit, next week at the German Technical Summit 2008 in Berlin. There will be the full force of the German DPE gang joined by Frank Prengel as well as my humble self.

While the guys show You the latest and greatest of all Microsoft technology, I am having a session on the new and exciting stuff in the Windows Embedded Standard release.

 

This is something that hardly can be missed. :-)

 

 

See You in Berlin next week!

 

Alexander

Well, if You still not considering to join my sessions in Barcelona, I have interesting information for You here.

 

I am going to demo RFID sign on to Windows Embedded Standard device in my 10 Reasons to Build Your Own
Windows Embedded Standard Device! session on Tuesday starting at 10.45 am.

Also, I am going to show how to implement the new DPWS (Device Profile Web Services) standard on a .NET Micro Framework device on Wednesday in the Talking Web Services to Microcontrollers session starting at 5.30pm.

So, how cool is that!? Be there!

 

Alexander

Microsoft just announced the release of Windows Embedded Standard, the newest version of its componentized Windows XP operating system.
Windows Embedded Standard Toolkits will be available by end of November 2008. The evaluation version of Windows® Embedded Standard will be available for download from www.windowsembedded.com. 

The release includes XP SP3, fixes and patches as well as some very interesting functionality updates and enhancements. Besides, there will also be an embedded SP3 update to existing XP embedded toolkits.

Alexander 

When booting from an USB stick it is important how you are formating the stick. XPe / WES comes with the UFDPrep.exe utility that helps You to prepare the flash device,

but it runs on XP only.

When formatted with Vista, USB sticks are bootable, but only for EFI boot.

Therefore they are booting e.g. WinPE 2.0 (based on the VISTA kernel) perfectly, but with XPe /WES You will noz be sucessfull.

If Your development system is Vista, You might apply a little trick: Use the first disk of XPe / WES to boot into WinPE 1.5 (which is based on the XP kernel) and run UFDPrep. Copy over the image and all should be fine. If You have included the USB boot components, of course.

 

Alexander

 

 

 

 

Just after my session on the management of XPe devices using Systen Center Configuration Manager 2007 I was asked to blog the settings You need to do to achieve this.

So here we go:

Edit the SMS_def.mof file that controls Your SCCM inventory collection and set the parameter information for OSProductSuite from FALSE to TRUE. This enables the collection of this parameter from the field devices. You need to wait some time until results arrive.

The create a new collection in the SCCM MMC using the selection criteria OSProductSuite = 64, which is contained in the Operating System object.

After this You should see your XPe devices (and only them) in that collection. If You need to distinguish between pre and past FP 2007 devices look for the string "Embedded" in the OSName property. Devices pre FP 2007 do not have this addition in the name.

 

Alexander

 

Yes, it is TechEd time again.

 

This year I will be speaking at TechEd IT-Professional (June 10-13, 2008) about topics around the use of XP embedded in Enterprise and medical scenarios: 

 

XPe and System Center Configuration Manager 2007

Using XPe in medical settings

XPe Enterprise Security

Would be my pleasure to see You there!

 

Alexander

Even if You are not building robots, Microsoft Robotics Studio is able to deliver good value in Your project. What are robots other than a certain form of connected devices?

Check out the new CTP at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=EB00C558-2163-45A5-BEFE-531AD48BC525&displaylang=en

 

Alexander

 

There are two kinds of CF cards available. A lot of them are intended for use in cameras and  PDAs, etc. and have a bit set indicating that they are removable. The problem is that it is not possible to boot XPe on them without getting the bit set to fixed (there cannot be more than one partition on them either). There are tools in the market that will do this, but these do not always work reliably.

My advice would be to buy (industrial grade, of course) cards with the bit set to fixed to avoid that hassle and maybe negative side-effects.

 

Alexander

 

My friend and fellow embedded MVP Sean Liming recently released a new tool that helps to manage the Device Update Agent change management infrastruture on XP embedded devices.

Check out this article: http://www.embedded-computing.com/news/db/?10134 or get it from http://www.sjjmicro.com/Products.html

 

Alexander

 

The XP embedded group is hosting a MSDN chat about HORM (Hibernate Once Resume Many) and servicing of field devices on January, 29th, 10.30am -11.30am (PST - that is 19.30pm - 20.30pm GMT for Europeans). 

I feel very honored, having the chance to participate as a guest expert on this occasion and I do hope a lot of You reading this blog are going to join us asking loads of questions around all aspects of XPe.

The more, the better - I am sure it will be great fun!

Maybe we can even shed some light onto interesting HORM/Update experiences some people might have run into.

So please, come in and be our guests.

Alexander

I have tried to create a custom PE image with a localized version of the the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit). But every time I tried to prep an image this would result in an error message.

It took me some time before I found out that this is due to a localization error. Peimg /prep ecpects that after a warning the user types in "yes" to confirm the sealing of the image.

In my localized version the warning text has been translated into German where "yes" means "ja". Well, so far so good, the bad thing is that the tool itself has not been changed to expect the German "ja"! It still only validates the English "yes". Neat, isn't it?

Therefore, wherever You are in the world and Peimg asks You to enter "ja", "si", "qui" or similar, You should always use "yes" to be succesful.

A truly globalized application.....

 

Alexander

Vista Embedded most probably will have product activation. Any thoughts on this? I wonder if this impacts the way You are building systems. If so, just let me know.

 

Alexander