Windows Embedded CE 6.0
Windows Embedded CE 6.0 is the sixth major release of the Microsoft Windows embedded operating system targeted to enterprise-specific tools such as industrial controllers and consumer electronics devices like digital cameras. CE 6.0 features a kernel that supports 32,768 processes, up from the 32-process limit of prior versions. Each process receives 2 GB of virtual address space, up from 32 MB.
Windows Embedded CE 6.0 was released on November 1, 2006 and includes partial source code. The OS currently serves as the basis for the Zune HD portable media player. Windows Mobile 6.5 is based on Windows CE 5.2. Windows Phone 7, the first major release of the Windows Phone operating system, is based on Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3; although Windows Phone 7 is also using Windows Embedded Compact 7 features.
New features
- Some system components have been moved to the kernel space.
- The system components which now run in kernel have been converted from EXEs to DLLs, which get loaded into kernel space.
- New virtual memory model. The lower 2 GB is the process VM space and is private per process. The upper 2 GB is the kernel VM space.
- New device driver model that supports both user mode and kernel mode drivers.
- The 32 process limit has been raised to 32,768 processes.
- The 32 megabyte virtual memory limit has been raised to the total virtual memory; up to 2 GB of private VM is available per process.
- The Platform Builder IDE is integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 as plugin, allowing one development environment for both platform and application development.
- Read-only support for UDF 2.5 filesystem.
- Support for Microsoft's exFAT filesystem.
- 802.11i and 802.11e wireless standards, and multiple radio support.
- CE 6.0 is compatible with x86, ARM, SH4 and MIPS based processor architectures.
- New Cellcore components to enable devices to easily make data connections and initiate voice calls through cellular networks.
New features in R3
| Silverlight for Windows Embedded | Abilities brought to Windows Embedded CE to create rich applications and user interfaces |
| Internet Explorer Embedded | Has multi-touch panning and zooming abilities and a customizable interface to optimize the browsing experience on devices |
| Flash Lite | Browser plug in to render rich media websites; not available in Windows Phone 7 |
| Touch and Gesture | Plug-in engine to enable natural input abilities such as four-point multi-touch, advanced gestures and complex 3D animations |
| Connection Manager | Infrastructure technology to manage multiple network interfaces on the device |
| Microsoft Office and PDF viewers | Applications to render Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Adobe PDF content on the device |
Note that these features listed here are not all specific to Windows Phone 7 or the Zune HD.