Well I went ahead and ordered the evaluation copy of eVC++ 4.0, only crrently obtainable as part of the "Windows CE .NET Evaluation Software" from;
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/embedd ... valkit.asp
Fortunately I read the readme before installing, and decided not to bother. Here are some of my favourites;
"2.1.3 eMbedded Visual C++ 4.0 may not work if you upgrade your operating system.
2.1.6 Installation files are corrupted and "Add/Remove" option of the Installation wizard doesn't work.
Should your installation files become corrupted and the Add/Remove option of the Installation wizard does not work, delete the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\cestudio\4.0
This will allow you to install the product as a new installation.
4.3 eMbedded Visual C++ 4.0 does not support platforms with versions of Platform Builder earlier than 4.0.
Platforms used with versions of Platform Builder earlier than 4.0 are not supported. For example, the Pocket PC and Pocket PC 2002 SDKs, used with Platform Builder 3.0, will not be recognized.
5.4 __try blocks cause applications to stop responding while stepping through debug code.
5.7 MFC and ATL Projects may stop responding while debugging on the emulator.
5.8 Applications will occasionally fail to deploy the emulator.
6.2 Porting projects from previous versions.
To port projects from previous versions of eMbedded Visual C++, open a blank project and manually add the files from the old project to the new one. Support for ARM, MIPS, MIPSFP, or THUMB processors must also be added this way.
6.8 ActiveSync in eMbedded Visual Tools 3.0 may fail if you install eMbedded Visual C++ 4.0."
This is pretty appalling quality. I would estimate that it would take a team of 8 experienced programmers at least 6 months to rectify all the problems described in the readme. For me there are three key things that I would like to see;
FUNDAMENTALLY IMPORTANT
(1) Support for current Windows CE 3.0 platforms (e.g. current Pocket PC and Pocket PC 2002).
(2) Backwards compatibility of eVC workspaces and project files.
(3) The ability to install and cleanly uninstall eVC, and upgrade operating systems without the program failing.
(4) If the latest version of eVC does not support Windows CE 3.0 Pocket PC and Pocket PC 2002 platforms then at least users should be assured that they can use eVC3 on the same machine without any problems (e.g. the installation of eVC4 should not adversely affect the current eVC3 installation).
OTHER
(5) A stable implementation of STL.(I know a lot of other people might not need this).
What a mess.
regards,
Gary
