Control Panel (Windows Embedded CE 6.0)
1/6/2010
The capabilities provided by the Control Panel system in Windows Embedded CE are a small subset of what is available in Windows-based desktop systems. In Windows Embedded CE, the Control Panel system is made up of three parts: Ctlpnl.exe, Control.exe, and collection of Control Panel (.cpl) files. Ctlpnl.exe and Control.exe are OS executables that control the Control Panel folder view and architecture respectively. Whereas these first two parts form the underlying Control Panel infrastructure, the .cpl files are the applications that provide Control Panel functionality. To create your own Control Panel application, you must create a .cpl file that exposes the necessary callback functions to fit into the architecture established by Control.exe.
A Control Panel application is a DLL that is named with a .cpl file extension and that exports the function CPlApplet to handle CPL_INIT, CPL_GETCOUNT, CPL_NEWINQURE, CPL_STOP, and CPL_EXIT messages. When a user launches Control Panel, the OS populates Control Panel by automatically searching through the \Windows directory for files with the .cpl extension to load.
You do not have to make any entries in the registry for your Control Panel application to be recognized by the OS.
The following topics provide additional information about Control Panel in Windows Embedded CE-based operating systems: