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Design an OS (Compact 2013)

3/26/2014

Windows Embedded Compact 2013 includes a suite of development tools that help you design, build, debug, and deploy a Windows Embedded Compact OS to a target hardware device. These tools, described in Tools by Category, are designed to make the development process both straightforward and flexible.

Platform Builder, included with the Windows Embedded Compact tools, customizes the Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE). With Platform Builder, you can build custom OS designs, such as designs with media support or designs that support specific input/output types. Platform Builder includes an OS design wizard to help you choose the necessary components for your OS. These components include predefined Board Support Package (BSP) – sets of software components that allow an OS to run on a specific hardware platform – and design templates whose catalog items provide the functionality that your OS supports. You can choose a BSP from the set of preconfigured BSPs that ship with Compact 2013.

You can build OS run-time images that result from your OS design using either Platform Builder or command-line tools. Once you create the OS run-time image, you can deploy it to a Windows Embedded Compact PC-based device (CEPC), an instance of Windows Embedded Compact that runs on a virtual machine.

For more information about build options, see Build an OS.

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OS Development
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