We have some applications running on data reader devices with windows CE 6.0.
These apps was created with genexus generating C# / .Net Compact Framework 3.5
Genexus will not support this anymore and I´m looking for alternatives to rewrite these apps.
First, off course, i thought about Microsoft, but i would have to use visual studio 2008 (too old, my devices are also, but...).
Than i thought about SharpDevelop, but Compact Framework was dropped in version 4.
Does anyone know an alternative to develop C# for Windows CE 6.0?
Visual Studio 2008 (or 2005) is your only option and that's simply never going to change. Microsoft abandoned the Compact Framework starting in about 2010 and completely in about 2015. Windows CE itself has effectively been abandoned as well. There's simply no market for anyone else to even try to make an IDE for development for systems that have zero future.
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What IDE (and version) and it components should I use to build that app? For now I write in C# so that will be cool if it is possible
This is what i use for wm:
VS 2008 pro, Microsoft .NET Core SDK 2.1 (x64), Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC SDK. Im not sure about Davide Piras' answer above. I have never heard that anyone managed to install WM 6 project profiles in any VS above 2008 version. Beside v2008, i also have VS2012 installed and it doesnt register any MW project from Mobile SDK 5.0.
in the past i used Visual Studio .NET 2005 with the .NET compact Framework, that allows you to build apps for windows mobile 6.
mind that there is no above, Windows Phone ( 8 or 10 ) is a completely different beast than Windows Mobile 6 and app development for Windows Phone is still done in .NET but I don't think you have code or binary compatibility between Windows Mobile and Windows Phone.
I have about 20 app demos, mostly for Windows Mobile but some for Windows CE. They were all created in Visual Studio 2008 for Mobile 6.1, Mobile 6.5, and CE 5.0. They are a mix of C# and VB.NET. I've been asked to update them.
I've done a fair bit of research, and I understand you can't do the standard Visual Studio project conversion, but is there anyway to salvage these projects? Ideally, I need to get them running on the current version of Windows Mobile/CE and compiling in the current Visual Studio. Is there any hope for them?
The latest version of Windows Mobile/CE is WEC 2013, and is supported in VS2012 and later. Note that for .NET CF development you will need an Application Builder SDK from the device vendor.
Whether you will be able to port the applications really depends on what they do.
For instance, one of the main differences between CE 5.0 (and its mobile derivatives that you mention) and WEC 2013 is that in WEC 2013 user mode code can no longer access hardware directly, so if the applications rely on direct hardware access you will need to find or implement device drivers to do this. On a related note, P/Invoke is always a potential cause for concern when porting.
You'll also need to determine if the target device includes all the OS features that are required by the applications. Remember Windows CE / WEC are componentized OS's, and the device vendor might have excluded features from the OS image that the applications need in order to function.
I have windows 8.1 64 bit with visual studio 2013. But I want to develop C# application which will run on all Windows operating system xp,vista,7,8,8.1 32bit&64bit.
Is it possible to develop universal C# application for 32&64 bit xp,vista,7,8,8.1 OS.???
As pointed out in the comments, you can use .NET 4.0 to do this, and compile with Any CPU. Don't use 4.5 or later, as it's not supported on Windows XP.
You can even back-target your app all the way to the 2.0 runtime if you have a very simple application and you want to have the widest availability without having to install a later version of the .NET Framework on old machines. You give up a lot when you do this, though. I recommend just targeting 4.0 and being done with it.
Does anyone use the Windows 7 preview release for .NET development?
Do things like SQL Server Express 2005/2008, VS.NET 2005/2008 work on it fine?
How about IIS?
Any other things I should be taking into consideration?
I've been using Windows 7 as my primary operating system since its beta. It works pretty well with Visual Studio 2008 SP1, IIS 7.5, SQL Server 2008 SP1. I haven't had any problems so far.
i've been using it since the beta build (7000), and now RC build (7100). no issues, maybe some glitches but i can't remember any particular so nothing that makes real problems. oh, forgot to mention - i use both 32-bit and 64-bit on my rather old notebook and recently built desktop machine. both work fine.
VS2008 works ok, 2005 i think has to be run as administrator for the debugger to work, or some glitch it was, but not 100% positive any more what was it..
SQL2005/2008 Express work fine.
haven't tried IIS, the VS built-in web server works fine.
I too have been using Windows 7 (Beta, RC1) with Visual Studio 2008, MySql, IIS 7.5 (and a ton of addons), Eclipse 3.4, and VMWare for running Linux - everything runs very smooth.
It is a dream come true. Really.
I've been using Win 7 64bit for development heavily since beta.
VS 2008 + SP1, SQL Server Express 2008, TSVN 64Bit with a bit of development tools for Office 2007 Add-ins, Azure and Silverlight
There were a few issues under beta, but they were gone after upgrading to Windows 7 RC. Works like a snap.
Will their be a new release of the compact framework with VS2010 and .net 4.0 and if so what new features will it include?
WPF?
linq to SQL?
etc
Visual Studio 2010 only supports developing for windows phone 7. This is a silver light based framework, it does not support win forms or native code.
VS2010 can not be used to develop for Windows Mobile 6.5 or lower.
You can however install VS2008 along side VS2010.
From what I heard from guys in redmond, there will be a mobile silverlight platform for both windows mobile and nokia (symbian, I think).
The "silverlight mobile" platform should be built on top of the compact framework, so it will NOT be a port of the desktop version.
There seems to be an information embargo on Windows Mobile right now, but I think things will be much clearer once Windows Mobile 7 is out.
I'm not sure about 4.0 for compact devices (although it seems likely),
and I don't know about WPF either, but I can tell you they are going to provide Silverlight for mobile devices giving you access to a subset of WPF.
Haven't found any other references yet...
You can go here and vote to have Microsoft add Compact Framework Support for Visual Studio 2010.
UPDATE: MS has more or less abandoned existing feature requests in Connect. Please go to the new User Voice site to vote for this feature.
There's an unofficial release of CF 3.7 kicking around the intertubes:
http://www.google.com/search?q=compact+framework+3.7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1
It appears that someone ripped it off a ROM image and dropped it in a torrent.