Share via

Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded CE - what's the difference ?

  • Article

A very common question that perhaps needs some explanation is the difference between Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows Embedded CE 6.0 - so here's the explanation.

Windows Embedded CE is a hard real-time, componentized operating system that can be used by developers to build a wide range of embedded devices - you can think of the operating system as a box of Lego blocks, with CE 6.0 there are approximately 700 components (or Lego blocks) that make up the operating system, a developer gets to pick and choose which components or technologies they put into their embedded operating system design - the operating system could be built as a kernel only image which would boot with a ~300kb operating system image, the developer can also choose to include a web server, web browser, media player, networking, .NET Compact Framework, or a host of other operating system technologies, each of which will of course increase the size of the operating system image. Devices can be based on a range of processor architectures (ARM, MIPS, x86 or SH4) and can be headless or expose some form of user interface. The choice of operating system features also determines the application development APIs that are exposed from the device - this means that each CE based embedded device could expose a completely different set of components/technologies and therefore APIs to an application developer (and in many cases devices are closed, so there isn't a 3rd party developer story).

Windows CE gets released to two sets of customers, the general embedded developer (who builds cow milking machines, sewing machines, industrial robots, set top boxes, and a range of other cool devices) and "Microsoft internal" customers (Windows Automotive, Windows Mobile, others).

The Windows Mobile team choose their own specific set of Lego blocks (operating system components), add their custom shell, applications (like Office Mobile), and device specific technologies (like the connection manager for example) - the result is a uniform set of operating system technologies, applications, shell and APIs that are consistent across all Windows Mobile devices - this means that an application written for one Windows Mobile smartphone (or Pocket PC) should run across all Windows Mobile devices (just check out the list of Windows Mobile applications available on Handango). Windows Mobile OEMs don't have the ability to customize the underlying operating system/technologies because that would modify the exposed APIs on the platform, but do have the ability to add their own specific applications/services to the Windows Mobile device image (today screen plug-ins, applications like VoIP, games, or others) - this also means that it's not easy to put Windows Mobile devices into "kiosk mode".

You are probably wondering why I said that application "should" run across all Windows Mobile devices - while it's true that the underlying operating system technologies and APIs are consistent across Windows Mobile devices there are also some differences that application developers may not take into account, for example screen resolution or orientation.

 

Windows Embedded CE

Windows Mobile

Processors

ARM, MIPS, x86, SH4

ARM

Componentized

Yes

No

Headless

Yes

No

Consistent API

No

Yes

Licensed by

Distributors

Microsoft

 

So, what else... There is a major difference in the underlying operating system architecture for Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows Embedded CE 6.0 - Windows Mobile 5.0 is based on the CE 5.0 kernel/architecture - the memory architecture for CE 1.0 through CE 5.0 limits the operating system to running a maximum of 32 processes and each process runs in a 32MB virtual address space - the CE 6.0 release now allows for up to 32,768 processes running at one time, and each process gets a 2GB Virtual Address space to run in. Note tha 32,768 processes is a theoretical limit, the kernel has a 64k handle store, each process starts with at least two handles, so 64k handles divided by two handles equals 32k (32,768) processes - of course a typical application would use more than two handles so the actual number of supported processes is less then 32k, but certainly could be in the hundreds/thousands (can you think of an embedded solution that needs hundreds of processes running?).

- Mike

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 17, 2007
    Hi Mike, Nice article. I was always facing this question. Always people get confuse thinking that both are one and the same. But are different. Thanks

  • Anonymous
    January 17, 2007
    For those who are wondering what is the difference between Windows Mobile and Windows CE , check out

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2007
    Hi Mike, just a quick question (two actually): 1)Is DirectX9c supported in XPSP2Embedded? (I'm about to start writting an application and I'd like to know if I will be able to deploy it on XP embedded).

  1. Does CE6.0 support Directx9c ? Thanks a lot for your time and patience with my basic questions, very best ps: it'll be for x86 cpu board.

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2007
    A topic that comes up very often in the CE courses is "what is the difference between Windows CE

  • Anonymous
    January 19, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 19, 2007
    So does it mean that it is not possible to add an intermediate NDIS driver to windows mobile kernel? In Wince the same is possible!

  • Anonymous
    January 19, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 20, 2007
    Esta é uma questão que é levantada com frequência, e que já foi abordada por diversas vezes em blogs

  • Anonymous
    January 25, 2007
    The CE Guru Mike Hall explain it in his blog right here http://blogs.msdn.com/mikehall/archive/2007/01/17/windows-mobile-and-windows-embedded-ce-what-s-the-difference.asp

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2007
    Why is the clsid {6bf52a52-394a-11d3-b153-00c04f79faa6} defined on the Windows Mobile 5 OS but not on Windows Embedded CE 5 OS? This is the clsid for media player.

  • Anonymous
    January 31, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2007
    Continuing the series of What's the difference (CE 6.0 and Windows Mobile) - I got some questions from

  • Anonymous
    February 11, 2007
    How to develope/get os image for a new mobile device.

  • Anonymous
    February 12, 2007
    Hi! <a href= thanks for sharing ></a>   [url=thanks for sharing][/url]  

  • Anonymous
    February 16, 2007
    Hi! <a href= 3e755350bc0152c9d43ad7df4fedf4cf ></a>   [url=3e755350bc0152c9d43ad7df4fedf4cf ][/url]  

  • Anonymous
    February 16, 2007
    Hi! <a href= 3e755350bc0152c9d43ad7df4fedf4cf ></a>   [url=3e755350bc0152c9d43ad7df4fedf4cf ][/url]  

  • Anonymous
    June 25, 2007
    DifferencesbetweenWindowsMobileandWindowsEmbeddedCEWindowsEmbeddedCEisahardreal-time,...

  • Anonymous
    August 30, 2007
    If you have ever heard one of my talks on Windows Mobile development, you may remember me ranting a bit

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2008
    I want to point out some learning&#8217;s that I experienced recently after being challenged by a customer

  • Anonymous
    June 20, 2008
    Taxonomy WindowsMobileisbasedonWindowsEmbeddedCE WindowsEm...

  • Anonymous
    August 27, 2008
    Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded CE - what's the difference