Figure 1-1 Catalog Items View with the search box and Catalog Item Dependencies window
Build Configuration Management
Windows Embedded CE supports multiple build configurations that you can modify separately. The two standard configurations are Release and Debug. These build configurations are automatically available when you create an OS design. In the Debug build configuration, the compiler generates debug information, maintains links to the source code in program database (.pdb) files, and, to facilitate debugging and step-by- step code execution, does not optimize the code. Windows Embedded CE run-time images compiled in Debug build configuration are generally 50 percent to 100 percent larger than images compiled by using the Release configuration. To choose a build configuration, open the Build menu in Visual Studio, click Configuration Manager, and then, in the Configuration Manager dialog box, select the desired build configuration under Active Solution Configuration. You can also select the desired build configuration by using the pull-down menu in the Standard toolbar.
OS Design Property Pages
For each build configuration, it is possible to configure a number of project properties, such as the locale, whether or not to include KITL, custom build actions, inclusion of subprojects in the binary image, and custom SYSGEN variables. To access these options, display the Property Pages dialog box by right-clicking the OS design node in Solution Explorer and selecting Properties. The OS design node is the first child object under the Solution top-level node. The caption corresponds to the project name, such as OSDesign1. If Solution Explorer is not visible, open the View menu and click Solution Explorer, and if Solution Explorer currently displays the Catalog Items View or the Class View, click the Solution Explorer tab to display the solution tree.
In the top left corner of the Property Pages dialog box, you can find a list box to select the build configuration. Among other options, you can select All Configurations or Multiple Configurations. These options are useful if you want to set properties for multiple build configurations at the same time.
Locale Options
In the Property Pages dialog box, under Configuration Properties, you can find the Locale node, which enables you to configure language settings for the Windows Embedded CE image, as illustrated in Figure 1-2. For most languages, the Locale property page covers all requirements to localize the OS design, but some languages, particularly East Asian languages such as Japanese, require additional catalog components. It is also important to note that some catalog components related to internationalization significantly increase the size of the run-time image.
Figure 1-2 Locale property page
The Locale property page enables you to configure the following options for the run-time image:
■Locales Selects the languages that will be available to localize the run-time image. If a selected language has a default ANSI and OEM code page, the code page is automatically added to the OS design, as indicated by a marked corresponding code page entry in the Codepages list
■ Default Locale Defines the default locale for the OS design. The default language is English (United States), which uses the default code page 437 (OEM-United States).
■ Code Pages Specifies the ANSI and OEM code pages that will be available in the OS design.
■ Localize The Build Instructs the build process to use localized string and image resources. Platform Builder performs the localization of the OS design during the make image step of the OS design build process. Localized resource files are integrated inside the binary files for the common components, through res2exe.
■ Strict Localization Checking In The Build Causes the build process to fail if localization resources are missing, rather than just using the resources based on the default locale.
Build Options
Directly under the Locale node in the Property Pages dialog box, you can find the Build Options node, which enables you to control event tracking, debugging, and other build options for the active OS design, as illustrated in Figure 1-3.
Figure 1-3 Build Options property page
The Build Options property page enables you to configure the following options for the run-time image:
■ Buffer Tracked Events In RAM Causes Platform Builder to include OSCapture.exe in the CE image. Also enables logging of operating system events tracked by OSCapture.exe in RAM so they can be flushed to a file and viewed later.
■ Enable Eboot Space In Memory Enables the Ethernet boot loader (EBOOT) to pass data to the Windows Embedded CE OS at start time.
■ Enable Event Tracking During Boot Enables CE event log data collection much earlier during the start process than it would normally be collected otherwise. If you activate this option, event tracking starts before most of the kernel and file system initialization is complete.
■ Enable Hardware-Assisted Debugging Support This is required for some third- party hardware debugging tools (JTAG probes compliant with exdi2).
■ Enable Kernel Debugger Enables the Windows Embedded CE debugger so you can step through the code in the run-time image. Kernel debugging requires KITL to communicate with Platform Builder at run time.
■ Enable KITL Adds KITL to the run-time image. KITL is a useful debugging feature that enables developers to use the kernel debugger, interact with the remote device's file system, registry, and other components, as well as run code. You should not include KITL in the final build of the operating system, because it introduces overhead and wastes time during the start process trying to connect to a host computer.
■ Enable Profiling Enables the kernel profiler in the run-time image, which you can use to collect and view timing and performance data. The kernel profiler is a useful tool for optimizing the performance of Windows Embedded CE on a target device.
■ Flush Tracked Events To Release Directory Adds CeLogFlush.exe to the runtime image, which automatically flushes log data collected by OSCapture.exe to the Celog.clg file in the release directory on the development computer.
■ Run-Time Image Can Be Larger Than 32 MB Enables you to build a larger-than-32-MB image. However, you should not use this option if you want to build an image larger than 64 MB. In this case, you must set an environment variable for the appropriate size (such as IMGRAM128).
■ Use Xcopy Instead Of Links To Populate Release Directory Creates actual copies of the files by using xcopy rather than copylink. Copylink might only create hard links to the files rather than copying them, and it requires the NTFS file system on the development computer.