Windows Embedded CE 6.0 (codenamed "''Yamazaki''") is the sixth major release of the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

embedded operating system An embedded operating system (EOS) is an operating system designed specifically for embedded computer systems. These systems aim to enhance functionality and reliability to perform dedicated tasks. When the multitasking method employed allows ...

targeted to enterprise-specific tools such as industrial controllers and consumer electronics devices like

digital cameras A digital camera, also called a digicam, is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film or film stock. Digital cameras are now ...

. CE 6.0 features a kernel that supports 32,768 processes, up from the 32-process limit of prior versions. Each process receives 2 GB of virtual address space, up from 32 MB. Windows Embedded CE is commonly used in supermarket self-checkouts and cars as a display. Windows Embedded CE is a background system on most devices that have it. Windows Embedded CE 6.0 was released on November 1, 2006, and includes partial

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

. The OS currently serves as the basis for the Zune HD

portable media player A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally they refer to small, Electric battery, batter ...

. Windows Mobile 6.5 is based on Windows CE 5.2.

Windows Phone 7 Windows Phone 7 (WP7) is the first release of the Windows Phone mobile client operating system, released worldwide on October 21, 2010, and in the United States on November 8, 2010. It runs on the Windows CE 6.0 kernel. It serves as the successo ...

, the first major release of the

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft Mobile for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design languag ...

operating system, is based on Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3; although Windows Phone 7 is also using Windows Embedded Compact 7 features.

New features

* Some system components (such as filesystem, GWES (graphics, windowing, events server),

device driver In the context of an operating system, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabli ...

manager) have been moved to the kernel space. * The system components which now run in kernel have been converted from

EXE Exe or EXE may refer to: * .exe, a file extension * exe., abbreviation for Executive (disambiguation)#Role, title, or function, executive Places * River Exe, in England * Exe Estuary, in England * Exe Island, in Exeter, England Transportation a ...

s to DLLs, which get loaded into kernel space. * New

virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage, is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a ver ...

model. The lower 2 GB is the process VM space and is private per process. The upper 2 GB is the kernel VM space. * New

model that supports both

user mode A modern computer operating system usually uses virtual memory to provide separate address spaces or regions of a single address space, called user space and kernel space. This separation primarily provides memory protection and hardware prote ...

and

kernel mode In computer science, hierarchical protection domains, often called protection rings, are mechanisms to protect data and functionality from faults (by improving fault tolerance) and malicious behavior (by providing computer security). Computer ...

drivers. * The 32 process limit has been raised to 32,768 processes. * The 32 megabyte virtual memory limit has been raised to the total virtual memory; up to 2 GB of private VM is available per process. * The Platform Builder IDE is integrated into

Microsoft Visual Studio Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) developed by Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platforms ...

2005 as plugin (thus forcing the client to obtain

2005 also), allowing one development environment for both platform and application development. * Read-only support for UDF 2.5 filesystem. * Support for Microsoft's

exFAT exFAT (Extensible File Allocation Table) is a file system optimized for flash memory such as USB flash drives and SD cards, that was introduced by Microsoft in 2006. exFAT was proprietary until 28 August 2019, when Microsoft published its spe ...

filesystem. * 802.11i (WPA2) and 802.11e (QoS) wireless standards, and multiple radio support. * CE 6.0 is compatible with x86, ARM, SH4 (only up to R2) and MIPS based processor architectures. * New Cellcore components to enable devices to easily make data connections and initiate voice calls through cellular networks.

New features in R3

Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 was finalized in September 2009 for OEMs and serves as the base platform for the Zune HD and Windows Phone 7. CE 6.0 R3 includes the following new features and abilities:Development Resources , Windows Embedded CE 6.0
/ref> These features listed here are not all specific to Windows Phone 7 or the Zune HD.

References

* *

External links

History of Windows CE
by HPC:Factor with screenshots of the various versions
Bor-Ming Hsieh and Sue Loh: 3rd Generation Kernel for Windows CE
— Channel 9 Interview
Juggs Ravalia: Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Device Driver Model
— Channel 9 Interview
Mike Hall's WEBlog
{{Microsoft Windows family Embedded CE 6.0 Embedded operating systems Windows CE MIPS operating systems