Windows Embedded CE 6.0

Windows Embedded CE 6.0 (codenamed "Yamazaki")^[1] 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. ^[2] 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. ^[3]

New features

• Some System components (such as filesystem, GWES (Graphics, Windowing, and Events Server) ^[4], device driver manager) have been moved to the kernel space.
• The system components which now run in kernel have been converted from EXEs to DLLs, which get loaded into kernel space.
• New Virtual memory model. The lower 2GB is the process VM space and is private per process. The upper 2GB is the kernel VM space.
• New device driver model 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 IDE is integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 as plugin (thus forcing the client to obtain Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 as well), allowing a single development environment for both platform and application development.
• Read-only support for UDF 2.5 filesystem.
• Support for Microsoft's exFAT 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 OEMs 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 ^[5][6]:

Note that these features listed here are not all specific to Windows Phone 7 or the Zune HD.

References

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.