Pocket PC Memory Card Based Installer

Introduction

Installation of software on a mobile device is a trivial thing these days. Often the application is supplied with a Setup program that the user runs. I remember the first time that I installed a Pocket PC application by running a setup program from my desktop. The application installed onto the device, and afterwards I even had an entry in my Add-Remove Programs.

It almost did not make sense to me that to install software on my Pocket PC I should run a setup program on my desktop.

There is, however, a case when an installation like the one just described is not desired. That case for me is when I need to install my software on more than a single device. To handle multiple device installations without going through the process of partnering each device is the purpose of this code.

Some instances where this code could be useful are:

Pre-configuring 20 Pocket PC devices to ship to a customer.
Allowing the customer to provision multiple devices at a remote site.

Usage Scenario:

Unbox a device.
Charge the device.
Boot the device and perform initial screen tapping until the today screen is displayed.
Insert an SD Card into the device. (Device is totally configured to run my software).
Turn of the device - Send device to customer.

This code is an "AutoPlay" for a memory card. The goal was to insert an SD Card into the Pocket PC device, and have the .NET 2.0 Framework installed, if not already installed, then install my program.

The program presented here was designed to meet the following base requirements:

Activate when the SD Card is inserted into the device
Require no network from the device
Require no pre-installed software except the OS. PPC2003 SE in this instance
Require no ActiveSync anything

In addition to the base requirements, the following requirements are added:

Detect if the Compact Framework v2.0 is installed
Install the Compact Framework v2.0 if missing
Detect if my software is installed
Install my software if missing
Display a web page to the user at the end of the installation
Write a log of actions

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

About the Author

wduros1

Web Developer

United States

Member

I wrote my first program when I was a child - Basic on the TRS-80 used line numbers back then. I enjoy the problem solving and creative process that writing software invokes.

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PocketPC Installer

UncleMike987

6:40 8 Jan '07

If you don't want to get your hands dirty with programming, a far easier way of creating installer .exe files for PocketPCs / Windows Mobile devices is using the "PocketPC Installer" :
http://www.pocketpcinstaller.com

Basically, it's as easy as creating a .zip file.

You just drag'n'drop your .cab files & data files into this program, and it'll compress them all into a single .exe that you can run on your device.

By default, it'll only install .cab files that aren't currently installed on your device - very useful if you aren't sure whether your users will have the .Net CF libraries installed.

It'll let you add a User Agreement screen, set your own background image, and it'll resume running if one of your .cab files soft-resets the device.

Visual Studio Version

Chris0001

1:52 15 May '06

Is there anything in the source code that would not work in VS 2003? I'm using CE .NET 4.2 devices and these are not supported by VS 2005.
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.net compact framework version

OrMei

11:30 11 Apr '06

Hye,
Thanks for a great code example - it will be very helpfull in a project i'm deploying.

I have a question:
How do you know it's .net CF 2.0 and not 1.0 , if you only look for the file existance?
Isn't it better checking the registry?

I know the registry key to check :
"\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETCompactFramework"

but i don't know how to implement it by c++ code.

Cheers

OrMei

Re: .net compact framework version

wduros1

7:45 14 Apr '06

OrMei,

I hope that you find some use from this code. In response to your questions:

Topic: "Simple File Existance Check = Not Good Enough"

Your right, that is one of the limits of the source code that I posted. I am bad about intending to post code to Code Project, then never getting around to it. For that article, I was trying to post regardless of the completeness, just to get something up there, meaning to update the article and code later.

Checking for existance was my first version of the code and the one posted in the article. I have plans to update the article and posted code, but I don't have any free time right now... So now my problem is that instead of having no code posted, I have code posted that I know is not up to my own standards.

In this case, I thought it would be better to have something, rather than nothing, since Mobile development resources are more scarce than other types of application development resources.

Version 2.0 of the posted code looks for specific files to determine if 2.0 or 1.X is installed.

Topic: "A registry check would work"

You are right, a registry check would work as well as a file check.

When I was looking for a way to tell if the framework was installed, it seemed easier to surf the file system on the Pocket PC using the remote file viewer and find the "dot net file" than to surf at the registry on the pocket pc to find the proper key. It may be easier the other way around, but I did not investigate that route. I have see so many corrupted registry entries...

I suppose that you could also check both sources of information, and compare them.

Topic: "Checking the registry in C++"

After you find out which key indicates the presense of the framework, checking the registry is easy.
The Windows API provides three useful functions:
RegOpenKeyEx
RegQueryValue
RegCloseKey

// Sample Use

LONG GetRegKey(HKEY key, LPCTSTR subkey, LPTSTR retdata)

{

 HKEY hkey;

 LONG retval = RegOpenKeyEx(key, subkey, 0, KEY_QUERY_VALUE, &hkey);

 if (retval == ERROR_SUCCESS) 

 {

  long datasize = MAX_PATH;

  TCHAR data[MAX_PATH];

  RegQueryValue(hkey, NULL, data, &datasize);

  lstrcpy(retdata,data);

  RegCloseKey(hkey);

 }

 return retval;

}