Hardware and Software Requirements for Smart Device Projects

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The following paragraphs specify requirements for the development computer, the target device, and the connection between the two.

Development Computer

Selecting Smart Device Programmability (selected by default) when you installed Visual Studio adds approximately 900 MB of hard disk space usage. If you are not developing Smart Device applications, you can recover this space by uninstalling Smart Device Programmability. You can do this by selecting the Add or Remove Programs tab in Control Panel selecting your Visual Studio installation, clicking Change/Remove, and following the steps.

Installing Smart Device Programmability also installs the Pocket PC 2003 SDK, Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC and Smartphone SDKs, and Windows CE 5.0 SDK. Other SDKs such as Windows Mobile 6.0 must be downloaded and installed manually.

You need a minimum of 64 MB of additional RAM when you use an emulator in your device projects.

Device

The target device must support the platform you are developing against. Visual Studio provides support for the Pocket PC 2003, Smartphone 2003, and Windows CE 5.0 and later platforms.

Approximately 2 MB of RAM are required on the device for the .NET Compact Framework if the Framework has not been installed in ROM.

Requirements for Windows Embedded CE SDKs

You can use Visual Studio to build device applications for any SDK, regardless of sysgen variables. However, Visual Studio requires some operating system components in order to deploy and debug applications on a device. If you use Platform Builder to create an SDK for a Windows Embedded CE 6.0 device which does not include the required components, you may have to deploy and debug your application manually. In order to deploy and debug native device applications on a device, the SDK must include the following sysgen variables:

  • SYSGEN_CPP_EH_AND_RTTI

  • SYSGEN_STDIOA

  • SYSGEN_OLE

  • SYSGEN_WINSOCK

Note

When you add the sysgen variables, Platform Builder automatically adds dependent sysgen variables such as SYSGEN_FULL_CRT, SYSGEN_STDIO, SYSGEN_STRSAFE, and SYSGEN_PMSTUBS.

In order to deploy and debug managed device applications, the SDK must also include the following sysgen variables:

  • SYSGEN_DEVICE

  • SYSGEN_CORELOC

  • SYSGEN_IPHLPAPI

  • SYSGEN_DOTNETV2_HEADLESS or SYSGEN_DOTNETV2

If Visual Studio connects to the device over Ethernet, the SDK must also include the following sysgen variables:

  • SYSGEN_ETHERNET

  • SYSGEN_IPHLPAPI

Connection

Visual Studio requires the following:

Hardware

Unless your physical device has wireless connectivity with the development computer enabled, you need a serial or USB cable, as provided by the device manufacturer, to connect a device to the development computer. Before you can use this connection, you must set up the development computer and device according to the instructions provided by the device manufacturer.

Using an emulator as your device requires no additional hardware.

Software

Windows Mobile Device Center 6.0 or Microsoft ActiveSync version 4.0 or later versions.

See Also

Concepts

Installation and Setup Essentials

Visual Studio Editions and Hardware Requirements

Other Resources

Getting Started with Smart Device Projects