03-10-2012, 01:44 PM
Device Emulator and Device Emulator Manager
[attachment=35134]
INTRODUCTION
If you are a Windows Mobile Application Developer you
probably have heard or have already used the Device Emulator.
This is a priceless tool to test your applications on a variety of
different Windows Mobile devices with all kinds of different
form factors, without the need to have access to a large range of
physical devices.
This article provides information to use Device Emulator to test
your applications, how to configure Device Emulator to control
the behavior of the tool. This article also provides information
on how to make use of Device Emulator in combination with
Cellular Emulator to allow you to test phone calls and sending
and receiving of text messages. Finally, this article also
contains a section on how to make use of Device Emulator
Manager programmatically to control different emulators from
inside a desktop application.
Different Versions of Device Emulator
Device Emulator 1.0 shipped with Visual Studio 2005. This
emulator allows you to run and test your applications without
the need to have access to a real Windows Mobile device.
Since Device Emulator is a true ARM emulator, it will run
exactly the same executables that also run on real devices.
Building upon Device Emulator 1.0 but extending its
functionality and performance, Device Emulator 2.0 shipped
with the Windows Mobile 6 SDKs. As part of the Windows
Mobile 6 SDK installation process, Device Emulator 2.0
automatically replaces Device Emulator 1.0. This means that
all of your Windows Mobile Smart Device project that you
developed with Visual Studio 2005 will use Device Emulator
2.0 once it has been installed. Even if you are not targeting
Windows Mobile 6 devices and are still using Visual Studio
2005 for device development, it makes sense to install at least
one of the Windows Mobile 6 SDKs to take advantage of
Device Emulator 2.0. Not only will your code execute faster on
Device Emulator 2.0, it also gives you lots of new features like
extended configuration options to emulate particular hardware
settings and the possibility to test wireless communication
connections.
Saving Device Emulator Configurations for later use
With Device Emulator Manager it is possible to save your own
particular configurations for any type of Device Emulator.
Using your own configurations, you can for instance create an
additional Device Emulator that always automatically start with
a battery level of 50% and with a storage card configured
which points to a particular folder on your development
machine. To begin creating your own emulator configuration,
select one of the already installed emulators from inside Device
Emulator Manager, right-click on it and select Connect. Once
the emulator is running you can change its configuration, after
which you can save this particular configuration from inside
Device Emulator Manager by again right-clicking it and select
Save As. The newly created emulator configuration appears as
a brand new emulator inside Device Emulator Manager. It is
displayed in the tree view of Device Emulator Manager under
the My Device Emulators node. Creating a new emulator
configuration only means that a new device emulator
configuration file is created and stored, since the newly created
emulator configuration is already based upon a particular
emulator image. Therefore, creating new emulator
configurations does not take much storage space on your hard
drive.
[attachment=35134]
INTRODUCTION
If you are a Windows Mobile Application Developer you
probably have heard or have already used the Device Emulator.
This is a priceless tool to test your applications on a variety of
different Windows Mobile devices with all kinds of different
form factors, without the need to have access to a large range of
physical devices.
This article provides information to use Device Emulator to test
your applications, how to configure Device Emulator to control
the behavior of the tool. This article also provides information
on how to make use of Device Emulator in combination with
Cellular Emulator to allow you to test phone calls and sending
and receiving of text messages. Finally, this article also
contains a section on how to make use of Device Emulator
Manager programmatically to control different emulators from
inside a desktop application.
Different Versions of Device Emulator
Device Emulator 1.0 shipped with Visual Studio 2005. This
emulator allows you to run and test your applications without
the need to have access to a real Windows Mobile device.
Since Device Emulator is a true ARM emulator, it will run
exactly the same executables that also run on real devices.
Building upon Device Emulator 1.0 but extending its
functionality and performance, Device Emulator 2.0 shipped
with the Windows Mobile 6 SDKs. As part of the Windows
Mobile 6 SDK installation process, Device Emulator 2.0
automatically replaces Device Emulator 1.0. This means that
all of your Windows Mobile Smart Device project that you
developed with Visual Studio 2005 will use Device Emulator
2.0 once it has been installed. Even if you are not targeting
Windows Mobile 6 devices and are still using Visual Studio
2005 for device development, it makes sense to install at least
one of the Windows Mobile 6 SDKs to take advantage of
Device Emulator 2.0. Not only will your code execute faster on
Device Emulator 2.0, it also gives you lots of new features like
extended configuration options to emulate particular hardware
settings and the possibility to test wireless communication
connections.
Saving Device Emulator Configurations for later use
With Device Emulator Manager it is possible to save your own
particular configurations for any type of Device Emulator.
Using your own configurations, you can for instance create an
additional Device Emulator that always automatically start with
a battery level of 50% and with a storage card configured
which points to a particular folder on your development
machine. To begin creating your own emulator configuration,
select one of the already installed emulators from inside Device
Emulator Manager, right-click on it and select Connect. Once
the emulator is running you can change its configuration, after
which you can save this particular configuration from inside
Device Emulator Manager by again right-clicking it and select
Save As. The newly created emulator configuration appears as
a brand new emulator inside Device Emulator Manager. It is
displayed in the tree view of Device Emulator Manager under
the My Device Emulators node. Creating a new emulator
configuration only means that a new device emulator
configuration file is created and stored, since the newly created
emulator configuration is already based upon a particular
emulator image. Therefore, creating new emulator
configurations does not take much storage space on your hard
drive.