Build Configurations (Windows Embedded CE 6.0)
1/5/2010
During the development process, you can use the Platform Builder integrated development environment (IDE) to select one of two default build configurations for your OS design. These configurations are called Debug and Release configurations, and offer different options.
- The term release is used to refer to a configuration which, when built, results in a run-time image that usually includes all optimization.
- The term debug is used to refer to a configuration which, when built, results in a run-time image that usually includes limited optimization.
The level of optimization in a configuration can be modified according to your needs, resulting in a type of configuration known as a custom configuration.
You can create or select a different configuration at any time within the development process.
The following table shows the default configurations that you can select.
| Build configuration | Description |
|---|---|
Debug |
Building a Debug configuration produces a very large run-time image, which has full debugging enabled. From the Build menu, select Configuration Manager, and then in the Active solution configuration field, select Debug. This sets the environment variable WINCEDEBUG=debug. |
Release |
Building a Release, or Retail, configuration produces a smaller run-time image, which has limited debugging enabled. Release configurations support OutputDebugMessage, and can be configured for debugging. From the Project menu, select OS Design Properties, and then select the Build Options page. Then verify that both the Enable KITL and Enable Kernel Debugger check boxes are selected. This sets the environment variable WINCEDEBUG=retail. |
Ship |
Building a Ship configuration produces the final run-time image that will be provided to the customer, and which has no debugging enabled. For information about creating a custom ship configuration, see Creating a Custom Ship Configuration. |
When you switch between a Release configuration and a custom configuration that has no debugging enabled, you must do a clean rebuild of your OS design. This is because these configurations place their binaries in the same place, which can lead to conflicts between the configurations.
You do not need to switch the active configuration for your entire OS design to selectively build a few executables for debugging purposes in a Release configuration.
The following process shows how you can selectively build a few executables for debugging purposes in a Release configuration.
- Build run-time images based on Release and Debug configurations of your OS design.
- From the build release directory in the Debug configuration, copy the executable (.exe) files that you want to debug into the build release directory of the Release configuration.
- Run Makeimg.exe in the Release configuration, which links the copied executables into your run-time image.
See Also
Concepts
Run-Time Image Build Process
Miscellaneous Environment Variables