Mark Arteaga

Have you ever tried to use wceload to install your application and had a complete headache to get it working?  Ever wish you could just get ride of wceload and have more control on your installation process?  If you did, you should definitely check out our new CAB Installer SDK which will help you install your applications with ease and more importantly give you the developer more control.

Check out Chris' announcement post here and the CAB Installer SDK product page here.

This product is being sold under our new 'Value Based Pricing Model' which basically means you pay what you think it's worth.  See here for more details on the new pricing model.

As always feedback is welcome!

Back in September 2007 we released our first version of Task Manager (formerly called TaskManCF). 

Last week we released Task Manager 2.0.  A few major things we have added to this version:

1. Changed the name from TaskManCF to Task Manager.
2. Improved the UI for Windows Mobile Professional
3. Ability to switch to application
4. Ability to find an applications associate process
5. Ability to kill all running applications

One of the more exciting things is we decided to get Task Manager logo certified and it is now we can proudly say Task Manager is "Designed For Windows Mobile 6"!.

Of course this does not mean it only runs on Windows Mobile 6, it also supports Windows CE, Pocket PC and Windows Mobile 5.  Only requirement is .NET Compact Framework 2.0 which can be downloaded here.

Here is a screen shot of Task Manager running on Windows Mobile 6 Professional device

Currently it does not support Windows Mobile Standard (aka SmartPhone) but if there is a need for it we can add that.

Go ahead and download the Evaluation version and let us know what you think and if you want other features added!

For those not familiar, Windows Mobile 6.1 comes with a new application called Welcome Center which basically is a help system for users. 

I was running some hopper tests on Task Manager 2.0 and looking through the hopper.log file I noticed the following line:

STATS: \Windows\welcomecenter.exe -> #NETCF_AGL_PARK_\Windows\welcomecenter.exe: Time in State =          0 secs ( 0.0%); Actions =      2; Visits =      2; Last visit =    196 actions ago

If you noticed #NETCF_AGL_PARK_ then you know that this means the application WelcomeCenter.exe uses Compact Framework and this is a welcoming surprise.  Let's hope this trend continues with other apps from the Windows Mobile team and other teams within Microsoft!

As for Task Manager 2.0 here is a screen shot of the new version.

And yes we do know that Windows Mobile 6.1 has a Task Manager included but ours does not filter out any processes or applications, allows you to terminate processes, end applications, terminate threads, change thread priorities and view all threads and modules loaded for a process.  The same binary also works on different platforms such as Windows CE, Pocket PC 2003, Windows Mobile 5 and Windows Mobile 6. It's also written using Compact Framework  and leverages the Smart Device Framework.

We have just released a new product called Padarn Web Server for Windows CE.  What exactly is it?  Well it's a very small-footprint ASP.NET Web Server built to run on Windows CE 5.0+.  Think about WIFI routers, set top boxes or any other embedded device that would need some sort of a web UI to configure it.  Or possibly you need to do some reporting or expose some services to configure the device remotely. With Padarn you can leverage your managed code experience and build web apps faster.  For example take a look here to display the device system information. Here is the source to display the device system info. Want to see other examples then check out www.padarn.net and check out the product page here.

We have just released an update to our Popup Menu Control which resolves a few bugs our customers have found.  If you have never heard of the control then in short what it allows you to do is display a customized Context Menu in your .NET Compact Framework application.  By customized I mean showing icons, background images, background/foreground colours and owner drawn capabilities.  It's supported on both Windows Mobile and Windows CE. 

Here are a screen shot of what can possibly be done.

By setting the PopupMenuItem.OwnerDraw property to true, you as the developer have the option to customize the menu item however you like.  Here is a new sample I just created showing a gradient context menu:

Download the evaluation version and try out the samples.