Customer Reviews

Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Fundamentals (PRO-Developer)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book doesn't tell much about the programming for WinCE, it's mostly a guide to the toolkit that builds the OS images, and not a particularly good one at that. About half of it is the screenshots of various menus. It does discuss the OS architecture but with very little depth, only just enough to give a little introduction to the toolkit settings. It feels like the authors themselves don't understand deeply what they're talking about but are just retelling and summarizing some other manuals.

This book starts from "After a new OS design project has been created" (page 32) after talking about installation of CE. But how to create a new OS design project? It doesn't talk about that. There are few examples if any in this book. So it is not a book for a newbie. But if someone already knew CE, why he/she still needs to read this book which is full of documents available on MS website?

It's about time a book like this was written.

Imagine that you are an experienced developer who has been assigned to move a driver from the desktop to CE or that you want to transfer a maintenance CE project to another experienced engineer. What is the fastest way to get up to speed on the build environment so that you can actually get to work on your code?

The answer is definitely NOT to read the Microsoft documentation. The Windows CE build environment is a hodge-podge of many different files, registry keys, tools, and sequences. Save yourself months of frustration and get this short book which will probably answer all your questions. And with the chapters on the CE architecture you will be up to speed on the platform in no time.

The only reason I can't give the book five stars is that, for me, it is a little short at 240 pages. Some more of the unique debugging tools available for the platform could be covered (and the value of the shared source should probably be highlighted more, possibly in an appendix), and the book would feel more complete.

With their knowledge of CE and straightforward writing style I only hope we see a second edition (or more books) from this writing team.

This book is a "must have" for developers who need to get a good introduction to the Windows Embedded CE developement process. The chapters are following the process one has to do when creating a Windows Embedded CE solution.
I recommend this book to all development managers who need to understand what has to be done when doing Windows Embedded CE business.
The autors are providing additional book links which I recommand to read before starting a project.

Good book for everyone who want to start development using Microsoft Platform Builder 6.0 and Windows Embedded CE 6.0. This book is good point for jump start. You can use it as excellent guide for development tool. If you want to get deep knowledge about Windows Embedded CE internals then this book is not for you.