05-12-2005, 03:00 PM
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Developer & Designer, News Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 12,959
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MSDN: What's New for Developers in Windows Mobile 5.0
"Windows Mobile-based devices, both Pocket PC and Smartphone, are widely deployed around the world. Much of what drives the popularity of these highly portable devices is their rapidly improving hardware capabilities. These devices now provide high-quality displays, cameras, increased memory sizes, and powerful communications capabilities that were unimaginable not long ago. Windows Mobile 5.0 puts these powerful device capabilities and much more into easy reach of developers."
This is a neat article outlining what's new in the developer's side of Windows Mobile 5.0. You'll find information relating to the new APIs, the new features of Outlook Mobile, plus a full breakdown of some of the tools in Visual Studio 2005. If you look hard enough, you'll also see the following: "Windows Mobile 5.0 software for Pocket PCs and Smartphones now share a common CAB format. Sharing a common CAB file format notably reduces the time required to create CAB files and to support the installation process because all device installations are handled through a single CAB." Sweet! :way to go:
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05-12-2005, 03:52 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 718
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While its cool to see the articles about the new features of WM2005, unfortunately most of us won't even get a whiff of the new OS until late this year or next year. Figure about summer/fall for the first new WM2005 devices to come out. And for those lucky enough currently with a device that is going to be upgraded, figure about fall/first quarter 2005 for upgrades. And my guesstimates are probably optimistic.
The only possibility for quicker deployment is that manufacturers already had the update for a while and are already on their way to a complete update (like HTC and their leaked WM2005 upgrade). In that case, it may be only a few months until we see updates. But I suspect it will be later rather than sooner before people see WM2005 updates IMO...
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05-12-2005, 03:53 PM
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Oracle
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 980
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so, what about the old cab format? is this means that old programs available in the old format can't be installed in the new WM 5?
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05-12-2005, 03:57 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 718
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by ctitanic
so, what about the old cab format? is this means that old programs available in the old format can't be installed in the new WM 5?
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Either three things:
1. They changed the SmartPhone format to match the WM2005 format
2. They changed the WM2005 format to match the SmartPhone format
3. They made an entirely new format incompatible with both old PPC AND old SmartPhone software
Hmmm, I wonder which one Microsoft chose to make our lives "easier"? 
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05-12-2005, 04:30 PM
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Oracle
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 980
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by DaleReeck
Quote:
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Originally Posted by ctitanic
so, what about the old cab format? is this means that old programs available in the old format can't be installed in the new WM 5?
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Hmmm, I wonder which one Microsoft chose to make our lives "easier"? |
I like your humor :devilboy: :evil:
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05-12-2005, 05:56 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 498
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It's funny, but not entirely new. It just means ( I guess) the new CAB format files can't be installed in the old devices but the old CAB format files can be used in new devices.
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05-12-2005, 05:59 PM
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Oracle
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 980
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by huangzhinong
It's funny, but not entirely new. It just means ( I guess) the new CAB format files can't be installed in the old devices but the old CAB format files can be used in new devices.
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that means that we will have to keep using the old format if we want to be compatible with all devices :devilboy:
Sucks!
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05-13-2005, 10:04 AM
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Thinker
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 484
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by ctitanic
Quote:
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Originally Posted by huangzhinong
It's funny, but not entirely new. It just means ( I guess) the new CAB format files can't be installed in the old devices but the old CAB format files can be used in new devices.
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that means that we will have to keep using the old format if we want to be compatible with all devices :devilboy:
Sucks! |
In fact the new CAB format has a big advantage: it is compressed, so the CAB files are about half the size, which is a big gain to install apps OTA (over the air), i.e. directly from a server to the device, using WiFi or GPRS.
Also, the new CAB files can be signed, which will be useful since the new Pocket PC's under WM5 will use a security model similar to that of Smartphone (i.e. apps will not always have the right to run in kernel mode unless signed with a privileged certificate, depending on the security setting of the device).
Also, due to the large number of new API's in WM5, it is very likely that binaries using these new API will not be compatible with older devices (WM2003), because the DLL for those new API's don't exist in older devices, so the app won't be able to resolve some symbols at load time... unless developers use a complicated and dynamically configured set of DLL's to handle all cases.
So you can expect that most apps will have new versions for WM5, and legacy versions for older devices, at least for a couple of years.
The same happened with SH3 and MIPS a few years ago: very few developers still include the old SH3 and MIPS CABS in their setup files!
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05-13-2005, 12:36 PM
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Oracle
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 980
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by The PocketTV Team
Also, the new CAB files can be signed, which will be useful since the new Pocket PC's under WM5 will use a security model similar to that of Smartphone (i.e. apps will not always have the right to run in kernel mode unless signed with a privileged certificate, depending on the security setting of the device).
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Yeah, we have been talking about this wonder here
http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/foru...=344131#344131
what seems to be a very good advantage for you for me it's not more than a way to sucks more money from us.
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05-13-2005, 03:30 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 94
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by The PocketTV Team
Also, the new CAB files can be signed, which will be useful since the new Pocket PC's under WM5 will use a security model similar to that of Smartphone (i.e. apps will not always have the right to run in kernel mode unless signed with a privileged certificate, depending on the security setting of the device).
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The new CABs can be signed, but the security document posted by Microsoft didn't indicate that the WM5 security model will be like SmartPhones. In fact, it differentiated them quite a bit.
As one who's been playing with the system for a little while, I can say that it works more like XP SP2. You'll get a notification about an unsigned application asking you if you trust it. If you do and you tap on "Yes", you never get a warning about that application again.
Now, the document left it open as to whether or not the security model will ever change, but right now, it is not much different from the way things currently work. Please see the quote below:
Quote:
A device that is one-tier is one where any process that runs, runs trusted. A device that is two-tier is one where a process runs either trusted or normal. On a two-tier device, only privileged applications run trusted.
Currently, Pocket PC only supports one-tier. Smartphone supports either one-tier or two-tier, but the vast majority of Smartphones are two-tier.
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