About the Device Emulator
The Microsoft Device Emulator version 3.0 is a desktop application that emulates the behavior of a Windows CE- or Windows Mobile-based hardware platform. When you use the Device Emulator, you can run, test, and debug a run-time image without the need for a physical device. By default, Device Emulator version 3.0 overwrites previous installations and is installed in drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Device Emulator\1.0.
Note
Device emulator only emulates hardware. To run device emulator, you must specify an operating system image file designed for device emulator hardware. The image files can be downloaded individually or installed with Visual Studio or Windows Mobile SDKs.
Features
A number of features of the Device Emulator significantly improve on its predecessor. The Device Emulator:
Runs code compiled for ARM processors instead of x86 processors. In most cases, you can run the same binaries on the emulator as you do on the device.
Supports synchronizing with ActiveSync. You can use the emulator with a full ActiveSync partnership. This feature enables you to debug applications that are synchronizing, or use real synchronized data from within the emulator.
Supports more development environments, such as Visual Studio 2008, Visual Studio 2005, Visual Studio .NET 2003, and embedded Visual C++ 4.0 (Service Pack 4)—all using ActiveSync.
Supports GAPI. You can write and debug games on this emulator.
Adaptability
You can configure this virtual hardware platform just as you would a real hardware platform. You can specify screen resolution and orientation, memory size, skin design, and other properties. You can write event-handling code for the simulated hardware buttons and soft keys. The major limitation is that you cannot simulate performance, because the performance of the emulator depends largely on the speed of the processor of your development computer, the amount of system memory available, and other factors that would not affect performance on a distinct physical device. For more information, see Configuring and Using the Device Emulator.
Saving State
You can run one or more instances of the Device Emulator, and you can save the state of any instance for later development. For more information, see Saved-State Files.
Skins
You can apply existing customized skins or write your own skin files. For more information, see Skins.
Launching
How you start the Device Emulator depends on your installation. Device Emulator is available as a download from the Web and as part of the Visual Studio installation. For more information, see How to: Start the Device Emulator.