Windows CE Reaches End of Life, If Not End of Sales (theregister.com) 36
Microsoft's dedicated OS for embedded and pocket devices, Windows CE, has reached the end of its support lifetime. From a report: Windows CE -- and there's never been an official explanation of what the WinCE-inducing name stood for -- debuted in November 1996, just a few months after Windows NT 4, the first version of NT with the Explorer desktop from Windows 95. Earlier this month, as reported by HPC Factor, the last ever version, CE 8, branded Compact Embedded 2013, reached its end of support.
In 2011, Microsoft said it would be replaced by a unified platform based on Windows 8, but we know how well that went down. By 2020, the official migration path was set -- to a container on top of Win10 IoT. Its fortunes have always fluctuated. In 1999, we asked does MS care about WinCE? By 2003, we reported that eTForecasts said it would outship PCs. Indirectly, the researchers were right -- smartphones did end up massively outselling PCs. They just weren't Microsoft ones.
In 2011, Microsoft said it would be replaced by a unified platform based on Windows 8, but we know how well that went down. By 2020, the official migration path was set -- to a container on top of Win10 IoT. Its fortunes have always fluctuated. In 1999, we asked does MS care about WinCE? By 2003, we reported that eTForecasts said it would outship PCs. Indirectly, the researchers were right -- smartphones did end up massively outselling PCs. They just weren't Microsoft ones.
There hasn't? (Score:3)
Windows CE -- and there's never been an official explanation of what the WinCE-inducing name stood for
From MS's very own website: "Windows CE, also known as Windows Embedded Compact"
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I was planning to dress up as a Windows CE device for Halloween, because the name has no official explanation, thus it's spooky. But now you debunked the spookiness. Thanks.
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You'll scare the crap out of the kids dressing up as an HP Jornada. What's wrong with you?
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After doing tech support back in the day for "Pocket PC" combination wifi/storage compactflash adapters I would probably slam the door and hide under my bed
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The last of my Zebra MC-92 devices, and I really won't miss them. Everytime I had to reset one I was reminded why iOS and Android won that particular war.
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The evidence is there for all to see.
As for ending support - I have not noticed any support in the last 15 years or so, so I am no more disappointed than I was on day two - when I discovered I could not install Linux on the device.
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Re:There hasn't? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually... WinCE is simply a description [dictionary.com] (or warning) about trying to use it ... :-)
wince
verb: give a slight involuntary grimace or shrinking movement of the body out of or in anticipation of pain or distress.
noun: a slight grimace or shrinking movement caused by pain or distress.
Re: There hasn't? (Score:2)
The man-hours lost trying to make it work should cause anyone wince.
It's probably one of the worst operating systems ever.
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I second that. I used to build the OS for the Windows based Treos for Palm in 2005-2007 and that was technically horrendous to deal with. At least we drove the builds through Cygwin so that we could have a semblance of sanity with shell and python scripts instead of just BAT files, but damn every time I need to deal with a windows machine, more and more rare fortunately, I get PTSD.
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Which doesn't explain Windows CE. Wouldn't Windows Embedded Compact be Windows EC? (William Gaines edition!). You could argue it stands for Windows Compact Embedded, but they didn't say that.
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I always thought it was Compact Edition
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TFA did (Score:2)
Earlier this month, as reported by HPC Factor, the last ever version, CE 8, branded Compact Embedded 2013, reached its end of support.
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From the book "Inside Windows CE," it stood for "Windows Compact Edition."
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Wouldn't that make it Windows EC?
I always thought it was Windows Compact Embedded, but I didn't pay too much attention. My sig is a homage to some of the BS we had to deal with when trying to make Win CE 7 work. They said it supported Silverlight, but it didn't.
Actually they said it supported a lot of stuff, like Portuguese language. But it didn't. We opened a support ticked, and those closed it saying there was no business case for fixing Portuguese, and have a free support ticket to make up for it. From m
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the last ever version, CE 8, branded Compact Embedded
Oh, what ever could CE stand for.
CE or EC (Score:5, Informative)
Posters before me (yeah I actually did read up) say "Embedded Compact."
Microsoft has "rebranded" this as of Win7 to be Embedded Compact.
Revisionism aside, it's always been Compact Edition.
https://www.hpcfactor.com/news... [hpcfactor.com]
So yes, you can read revisionist stuff on microsoft and wikipedia and people posting on social media, but back when it was a "compact edition" of Windows for ARM it was Windows CE. Later Windows Mobile and with Pocket PCs "Windows Mobile 2003" was actually usable... but one more time:
It was never "Embedded" anything. Windows CE was Windows Compact Edition. Sorry to burst the revisionist bubble.
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Just about the Windows NT 4.0 comment about the Start button. There was a patch for Windows NT 3.51 that replaced the Program Manager with the newer Win95 style Start button Explorer. Which was much better than the old program manager, and really useful on the DEC Alpha machines.
This brings back memories! (Score:3)
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to dust of the old Fujitsu Siemens PocketLoox.
Only now? (Score:3)
I'm surprised it still existed.
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On paper it's attractive to corporations. An embedded Windows that runs on low resources and which is easier to lock down than desktop Windows, and best of all their existing desktop developers can write software for it using familiar APIs. No need to hire expensive embedded devs.
In reality it's a load of crappy DLLs that barely work, and missing enough stuff that desktop devs get stuck when their favourite libraries aren't available.
Looking back (Score:2)
Man but did Microsoft FUCK UP by not releasing their version of an iPhone. My Dell Axim was the shit way back in 2003. I even used it to make phone calls, over Skype!
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I would say that Microsoft had something really nice going, even back in 2006. I had an HTC Wizard (which T-Mobile branded as the MDA), which was a slider phone that ran Windows CE on a dual core TI OMAP CPU (which was easily overclocked). That phone was able to do a ton of nice things... and it had a week long battery life, which is unheard of these days.
Yes, it required a stylus, but applications like (don't laugh) "Finger Friendly Friends" helped in that department. The phone even had encryption and t
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From a management perspective, Pocket PC phones were a marginal improvement over Blackberry. (ActiveSync was tolerable while BES was tremendously clunky and frustrating.) From a user's perspective, I got better feedback for the Blackberries being a little easier to use, and also more stable. Many of the CE devices we managed were prone to freezing up and the battery compartment lid would be worn out from users having to reseat battery in order to force a restart.
I was still a dumbphone holdout at the time b
Hrm? (Score:5, Interesting)
Compact Edition up until WinCE 6.0, then it became "Embedded Compact" with WEC7. Those who actually developed in WinCE/WEC7 should be familiar. Also a nod to those in the know: C:\WINCE600, C:\WINCE700. Platform Builder...
It's easy to pass this off as a nothingburger OS but it's actually a real RTOS with a performance kernel and priority scheduling. You can easily set the priority of a thread low enough (lower is higher priority) to starve critical OS threads like the worker thread for the file system, which is an incredible and useful amount of control in your hands. The device system and interrupt handling architecture are also very different from "big windows". Microsoft gives you most of the source code too and you build the OS image (NK.BIN) from source. WinCE/WEC7 is actually a pretty decent RTOS for doing Widnows-ish development on x86. I am by no means a MS fanboi but this was my favorite version of Windows to develop on and I'm sad to see it go.
It's worth noting that a lot of the hardware these OSs ran on did not get updated drivers for WEC2013 or IoT, so there is no effective migration path forward. If you produced a product with an older generation Intel graphics or NIC chipset then your product is effectively canceled with the suspension of WEC7 licenses.
Final thing I want to say about the WinCE family of OSs is that MS gave us _most_ of the source code but not all. I was able to customize the ATA driver to add ATA secure erase enhancements and also fix a bug in the USB host driver thanks to the open source, but guess where the remaining bugs in the operating system were :) The closed-source bits like the DHCP server and FAT filesystem driver still have outright bugs or performance issues because MS dropped support many years ago but refused to give customers access to enhance the software themselves. I think there's a lesson to be learned from that and I think WinCE could have continued to be a successful player with renewed support from MS and open access to the source code for paying customers. I'm sure it could make money, just not enough for them to care.
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Seems like the FAT driver could have been rewritten from scratch or using some other source of code, it's just not that complicated as such things go and there are lots of implementations. DHCP server, likewise.
However, having multiple Windows codebases was always a liability and now that embedded systems can reasonably run NT it's easy to see why Microsoft wanted to be rid of wince.
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I had a NEC MobilePro and a handful of PocketPCs. I miss my MobilePro.
As others may not have mentioned, Windows CE isn't Windows at all. It's a completely original, multi-threaded operating system that has a Windows API.
If you can find it, the book "Inside Windows CE" tells the story in great detail.
Microsoft did good??? (Score:2)
It sounds like Windows Compact Edition was ahead of Android capability-wise for many years, so why did it remain unpopular? Thoughts include; hardware too expensive, licensing T&Cs, or Windows API learning/usage problems. Does someone have details?
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Despite all the efforts to build a compact operating system with a Windows API (it wasn't actually Windows, just compatible with Win32), the devices were far too expensive and cost almost as much as a regular PC laptop.
The NEC MobilePro 800, arguably the most powerful and useful Windows CE device ever made, cost me a whopping $800 in 1999.
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Several reasons. The early devices (CE3 and earlier) did this thing where the whole filesystem was stored in RAM. So if the handheld was left to go flat, or the application crashed hard enough to bring down the kernel too, the device would be factory reset and you'd have to reinstall everything.
The UI was, for the most part, Windows stuck on a phone screen. Start menu and all. PocketPC/Windows Mobile made some concessions to being a mobile device, Windows CE without the PocketPC shell just looked like a
The meaning of CE (Score:2)
Windows Cringe Editon
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This will be a grave disappointment... (Score:2)