How to Chnage the Default Screen in Windows CE 5.0

[Rasheed]

Hi

We are building a a custom device using a Windows CE 5.0 platform
builder.Our requirement is when WindoWs CE 5.0 device boot up, instead of the
default screen (Windows CE 5.0 desktop) we want our device intial screen to
come up.Can any one tell us to how to do that?Which all the files to be
modifed in the WIndows CE 5.0 drectory structure.
I have got a white paper from msdn
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa459146.aspx ,but I am not sure
that wil meet our requirement.

Thanks in advance.
Rasheed

[Bill T]

It sounds like you want to use a different shell or want to create a custom
shell. Refer to the "How to Customize the Shell" article in PB on-line help.
If you only need to replace the desktop with a blank screen before your app
loads and runs, taskman can be modified to do this.

[Rasheed]

Hi Bill

Thank you for your reply.
Basically what we looking when windows CE custom device boot up it shows the
device name and company name and logo with some of the UI.
I wanted to know if we do as per "How to Customize the Shell" article in PB
on-line help, is it possible achieve our requirements.

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

How about just changing the desktop wallpaper? That's a nice simple thing
to do (it's a registry setting), and you don't have to customize the shell.

Paul T.

"Rasheed" <mrash...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:F3700CC6-EED6-4715...@microsoft.com...

[Rasheed]

Hi
I I think changing the wallpaper, is not going to solve my problem.
Let me put requirements clearly

1. I want my application to run at start up;
2. Do not want Windows CE 5.0 to come up on boot up

I tried “how to customize the shell” as in PB online help says. But I did
not find any changes in desktop appearance.

Thanks
Rasheed

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

OK, somehow we got off track. You're just asking how to make your own
application be the system shell (or how to run on startup and hide the
default shell).

There's a topic in the help for CE about replacing the shell with your own
program, so you could look at that (you must have done something wrong when
you tried the customization thing).
Since it doesn't sound to me like you want shell functions to be
user-accessible, I don't think that the customizing-the-shell help topic is
what you want.

I prefer to let the shell be the shell and just run over the top of it,
myself. There have been many posts in the past, particularly in
microsoft.public.windowsce.platbuilder, about this. You need to disable the
main shell window from your application startup code (and presumably
reenable it, if you ever exit your program), and hide/disable the task bar
window. Between those two things, you prevent the user from using Alt+Tab
to select another application or using the task bar to change programs. If
your application is then full screen, covering the taskbar, the user can't
tell that the shell is even running underneath. To get your application to
run on startup, you just add an Init key to the registry for it. That's
also covered in the help.

Paul T.

"Rasheed" <mrash...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:60D86901-2BE5-41B2...@microsoft.com...

[Sunny]

Hi,

If i got your requirement right, i think you want to the following.
Say for instanace your application name is "MyApp.exe" and You want to
launch MyApp.exe instead of WinCE Desktop(explorer.exe).
if this is the case then, after building the platform, find the "shell.reg"
file in the platform release directory.
In shell.reg, you will find the following registry key section
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\init]
"Launch50"="explorer.exe"
"Depend50"=hex:14,00, 1e,00

Here, you replace "explorer.exe" by "MyApp.exe" as follows and do "Make Run
Time Image" from Build menu.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\init]
"Launch50"="MyApp.exe"
"Depend50"=hex:14,00, 1e,00

I hope this solves your issue.

Regards
Sunny.

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

That's not a maintainable way to do things long-term. Are you going to
always remember to go off and modify a file in an output directory by hand
and then rebuild the image again?! You can replace the entries that the
shell is trying to add by just putting your alternative entries in
project.reg or platform.reg.

Paul T.

"Sunny" <Su...@Sunny.com> wrote in message
news:u7H9LLJX...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

[steve hutch]

I hope you guys don't mind me added another related question here - but i
would be interested to know how you can change the location of the icons on
the Windows CE desktop. At present they are obscured on the desktop as they
are positioned to far to the left. I would like to position them centrally on
the desktop.

Kind Regards
Steve_Hutch

"Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" wrote:

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

Huh? You mean things like the Recycle Bin? That should never be off the
screen unless your display settings are wrong.

Paul T.

"steve hutch" <steve...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:817E7DC2-0526-46BD...@microsoft.com...

[r_z_...@pen_fact.com]

On Thu, 1 Mar 2007 02:11:11 -0800, Rasheed <mrash...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>Hi
>I I think changing the wallpaper, is not going to solve my problem.
>Let me put requirements clearly
>
>
>1. I want my application to run at start up;
>2. Do not want Windows CE 5.0 to come up on boot up

I may be way off base, but:
If you're intent is to have only your app visible, you can do pretty
well without much work:
1) put a link to your app in \Windows\Startup
2) hide the TaskBar; for more info, see a 21 Jan 2005 thread called
"How to hide the Taskbar in WinCE .NET" in
microsoft.public.windowsce.app.development

An alternate is to use "kiosk" mode. See the same thread for a link to
more info.

-----------------------------------------
To reply to me, remove the underscores (_) from my email address (and please indicate which newsgroup and message).

Robert E. Zaret, eMVP
PenFact, Inc.
20 Park Plaza, Suite 478
Boston, MA 02116
www.penfact.com

[Sunny]

Hai Paul,

Yes, the method you suggested is the best one,
It is better to modify the project.reg or platform.reg to overwrite the
default registry entries.
I forgot that, thanks for the input.

Regards
Sunny.

[Rasheed]

Hi Paul

Explrer.exe registry entry is available in the shell.reg, But not in
common.reg or platform.reg or project.reg.So how to hide the exploer.exe
and where to add the "myapp.exe" entry in any of the registry files

Thanks
Rasheed

"Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" wrote:

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

platform.reg and project.reg will both supersede what's in shell.reg, as I
recall. You'll want to test that, of course, building an OS with the new
entries in your favorite reg file and then checking whose entries are *last*
in reginit.ini found in the flat release folder after makeimg.

Paul T.

"Rasheed" <mrash...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:B0FDDDD0-990B-45A4...@microsoft.com...

[Rasheed]

Hi Paul

Thank you for the reply. Is there any corresponding entry for "explorer.exe"
in platform.reg or project.reg, so I can launch my aplication instead of
WInCE desktop.I am able to "modifying "shell.reg" as suggested by Sunny's
post and able to luach my application instead of WinCE desktop.
But I could not find "explorer.exe" entries in any of the reg files
(platform or project).
Please tell me what is the corresponding entry in platform.reg or project
.reg for "exploere.exe"

Thanks in advance.

[Rasheed]

Hi Paul

Thank you for your reply. Ignore my earlier post. I could make it work
adding the entry in project.reg for my application entry ,so my application
startup instead of WinCE desktop.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\init]
"Launch50"="myapp.exe"
"Depend50"=hex:14,00, 1e,00

. Also there is an msdn help "How to Configure the Registry to Run an
Application at Startup" for this.
But I have got problem when I exit my application, what are the things I
should take care.
There is a SignalStarted call, any idea how to use that?

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

You should call SignalStarted as soon as you are, well, started. You might
call it when the main window is ready, or you might call it before you drop
into the message loop in WinMain(). It's used so that things that list your
Launch<NN> value in their Depend<MM> can be launched. If you never call
SignalStarted, anything that depends on your will never start.

Paul T.

"Rasheed" <mrash...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

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