Available from Microsoft

Jun 3, 2009 10:57 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft is allowing developers to test Windows Embedded CE 6.0 as a gust operating system inside a virtual machine running under Virtual PC 2007. The past week, the Redmond company made available for download the Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Virtual PC 2007 Binary BSP (board support package) for just such a purpose. Now the software giant is taking it one step further with the release of a PowerToy designed to help with the debugging process. Essentially, PipeTerm for Virtual PC 2007 is capable of grabbing debug information from a Windows Embedded CE 6.0 operating system virtual image in Virtual PC 2007.

“We’ve just released a new PowerToy to the MSDN Code Gallery called PipeTerm, this is a handy utility that displays debug out from your CE 6.0 based operating system image running in Virtual PC 2007,” revealed Mike Hall, Microsoft software architect. According to the Redmond company, PipeTerm can be used to easily access serial port (debug) output from a booting and of course running Windows Embedded CE 6.0. The CE 6.0 operating system image has to be hosted in Virtual PC 2007, the software giant has emphasized.

“Virtual PC has the ability to map a serial port from the guest operating system (COM1 or COM2) either to a physical COM port on your development PC or to a named pipe, if you have a handy utility like PipeTerm sat listening on the other end of the pipe then you can display any data being pumped out of the serial port from the guest operating system running in Virtual PC 2007,” Hall added.

The video embedded at the bottom of this article will give you a taste of what PipeTerm can do. The PowerToy needs to be integrated with CE 6.0 Binary BSP for Virtual PC 2007, and it will allow for the testing and debugging of CE 6.0 images right from the desktop, without the need for the ARM Device Emulator.

“When using the Virtual PC BSP you have the ability to “package” a CE 6.0 operating system image in a .VHD file (Virtual Hard Drive file) and boot stand-alone without the need for Platform Builder, this can be quite useful for demos, to share a stand-alone operating system image with your colleagues who don’t need Platform Builder and are only interested in writing applications from Visual Studio,” Hall said.

PipeTerm for Windows Embedded CE 6.0 and Virtual PC 2007  is available for download here. Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Virtual PC 2007 Binary BSP is available for download here.