Changing the value of WINCEROOT

This is a pretty simple question. "How do I change the value of the
WINCEROOT variable in Platform Builder 5?" This is driving me crazy for
several reasons, none of which are terribly relevent right now...

Anyway, it's an innocent question, and it most likely has a pretty toothy
answer.

Thanks again,
Roger

Paul
Fri Nov 02 13:08:54 PDT 2007

The first tab, General, in the Platform Settings dialog has a checkbox to
override the root folder for WinCE...

Paul T.

"Roger Williamson" <RogerWilliamson@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:ACD2B4BF-D047-4B0D-B89C-53EBA6147ED9@microsoft.com...
> This is a pretty simple question. "How do I change the value of the
> WINCEROOT variable in Platform Builder 5?" This is driving me crazy for
> several reasons, none of which are terribly relevent right now...
>
> Anyway, it's an innocent question, and it most likely has a pretty toothy
> answer.
>
> Thanks again,
> Roger

Michel
Fri Nov 02 15:22:46 PDT 2007

I made a shell extension that does exactly that. Just right-click the
folder in explorer and select "Set as WINCE500 Root" or "Set as WINCE600
Root". Send me an email if you're interested and I'll send you the shell
extension. Or just wait for a couple more days until my website is up &
running again (work in progress...).


Regards,

Michel Verhagen, eMVP

GuruCE
http://GuruCE.com
Consultancy, training and development services.


Paul G. Tobey [eMVP] wrote:
> The first tab, General, in the Platform Settings dialog has a checkbox to
> override the root folder for WinCE...
>
> Paul T.
>
> "Roger Williamson" <RogerWilliamson@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
> message news:ACD2B4BF-D047-4B0D-B89C-53EBA6147ED9@microsoft.com...
>> This is a pretty simple question. "How do I change the value of the
>> WINCEROOT variable in Platform Builder 5?" This is driving me crazy for
>> several reasons, none of which are terribly relevent right now...
>>
>> Anyway, it's an innocent question, and it most likely has a pretty toothy
>> answer.
>>
>> Thanks again,
>> Roger
>
>

RogerWilliamson
Mon Nov 05 09:25:06 PST 2007

Paul,

Hmm... at first everything seemed to be fine. I copied over my WINCE500
directory to another directory, then when I went to Open Platform Builder, it
said that it couldn't read my WINCEROOT variable, and I had to change the
variable under Tools>Options>Build>Default OS Build Tree.

Now, after I've done that, I cannot Sysgen under the new directory with
this error:
"NMAKE : fatal error U1073: don't know how to make
'C:\rwilliamson_view\VehicleDisplay\WINCE500\PBWorkspaces\OrbStar\WINCE500\OrbStar_ARMV4I\cesysgen\oak\lib\ARMV4I\retail\pxa25xufnlib.lib' "

Additonally, I can't set my WINCEROOT back to C:WINCE500 because PB tells
me that "The entered path is not a valid build tree path"

I have to say that I'm perplexed!

Thank you,
Roger

"Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" wrote:

> The first tab, General, in the Platform Settings dialog has a checkbox to
> override the root folder for WinCE...
>
> Paul T.

Paul
Mon Nov 05 10:13:01 PST 2007

I'd try using a secondary directory that's completely clear of all possible
conflicts with some internal assumption of the tools. For example, I would
*not* place the Windows CE root more than one level off the root. Nor would
I use any characters that might be a problem (underscore, for example). I
avoid changing any of the basic configurations of Platform Builder
absolutely as much as possible. Even installing it on a non-default drive
isn't something I'd do without agonizing over whether that might come back
later to bite me. If you're building multiple devices for multiple
customers and you need to always build with this set of QFEs for these guys
and that set for those guys, you may be stuck. If not, just don't do it (I
should have said that right off the bat).

Paul T.

"Roger Williamson" <RogerWilliamson@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:3E29FBF4-299E-40B9-9B83-24A1298222EC@microsoft.com...
> Paul,
>
> Hmm... at first everything seemed to be fine. I copied over my WINCE500
> directory to another directory, then when I went to Open Platform Builder,
> it
> said that it couldn't read my WINCEROOT variable, and I had to change the
> variable under Tools>Options>Build>Default OS Build Tree.
>
> Now, after I've done that, I cannot Sysgen under the new directory with
> this error:
> "NMAKE : fatal error U1073: don't know how to make
> 'C:\rwilliamson_view\VehicleDisplay\WINCE500\PBWorkspaces\OrbStar\WINCE500\OrbStar_ARMV4I\cesysgen\oak\lib\ARMV4I\retail\pxa25xufnlib.lib'
> "
>
> Additonally, I can't set my WINCEROOT back to C:WINCE500 because PB
> tells
> me that "The entered path is not a valid build tree path"
>
> I have to say that I'm perplexed!
>
> Thank you,
> Roger
>
> "Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" wrote:
>
>> The first tab, General, in the Platform Settings dialog has a checkbox to
>> override the root folder for WinCE...
>>
>> Paul T.

RogerWilliamson
Mon Nov 05 11:08:01 PST 2007

Paul,

Believe me, I don't want to do this, but I have to. I eventually got the
two different WINCE500 directories working, but now they build different
images one is 4KB larger than the other.

I wouldn't have to do any of this nonsense if we weren't using ClearCase.
It has been a nightmare, every step of the way, performing
source-control/configuration management on this beast.

I suppose the question I should ask is: is there a good way to put the
PB5/CE5 codebase into ClearCase? So far, I haven't found it! Sadly, I
pretty much have to have the WINCEROOT based a few directories in since
ClearCase mounts its files two directories down unless I break my company's
IT rules.

...maybe I'm just venting...

Thank you,
Roger
"Roger Williamson" wrote:

> Paul,
>
> Hmm... at first everything seemed to be fine. I copied over my WINCE500
> directory to another directory, then when I went to Open Platform Builder, it
> said that it couldn't read my WINCEROOT variable, and I had to change the
> variable under Tools>Options>Build>Default OS Build Tree.
>
> Now, after I've done that, I cannot Sysgen under the new directory with
> this error:
> "NMAKE : fatal error U1073: don't know how to make
> 'C:\rwilliamson_view\VehicleDisplay\WINCE500\PBWorkspaces\OrbStar\WINCE500\OrbStar_ARMV4I\cesysgen\oak\lib\ARMV4I\retail\pxa25xufnlib.lib' "
>
> Additonally, I can't set my WINCEROOT back to C:WINCE500 because PB tells
> me that "The entered path is not a valid build tree path"
>
> I have to say that I'm perplexed!
>
> Thank you,
> Roger
>
> "Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" wrote:
>
> > The first tab, General, in the Platform Settings dialog has a checkbox to
> > override the root folder for WinCE...
> >
> > Paul T.

Paul
Mon Nov 05 11:22:13 PST 2007

Sorry, don't know anything about CC. The main problem with any directory
structure for Windows CE for me is distinguishing what needs to be checked
in and what is generated by the build system and what is Microsoft code that
you probably don't want under version control anyway.

What was the secret to getting it working, for the archives?

Paul T.

"Roger Williamson" <RogerWilliamson@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:8949CC40-847D-4DF9-A90F-A3F8143443B5@microsoft.com...
> Paul,
>
> Believe me, I don't want to do this, but I have to. I eventually got
> the
> two different WINCE500 directories working, but now they build different
> images one is 4KB larger than the other.
>
> I wouldn't have to do any of this nonsense if we weren't using
> ClearCase.
> It has been a nightmare, every step of the way, performing
> source-control/configuration management on this beast.
>
> I suppose the question I should ask is: is there a good way to put the
> PB5/CE5 codebase into ClearCase? So far, I haven't found it! Sadly, I
> pretty much have to have the WINCEROOT based a few directories in since
> ClearCase mounts its files two directories down unless I break my
> company's
> IT rules.
>
> ...maybe I'm just venting...
>
> Thank you,
> Roger
> "Roger Williamson" wrote:
>
>> Paul,
>>
>> Hmm... at first everything seemed to be fine. I copied over my
>> WINCE500
>> directory to another directory, then when I went to Open Platform
>> Builder, it
>> said that it couldn't read my WINCEROOT variable, and I had to change the
>> variable under Tools>Options>Build>Default OS Build Tree.
>>
>> Now, after I've done that, I cannot Sysgen under the new directory with
>> this error:
>> "NMAKE : fatal error U1073: don't know how to make
>> 'C:\rwilliamson_view\VehicleDisplay\WINCE500\PBWorkspaces\OrbStar\WINCE500\OrbStar_ARMV4I\cesysgen\oak\lib\ARMV4I\retail\pxa25xufnlib.lib'
>> "
>>
>> Additonally, I can't set my WINCEROOT back to C:WINCE500 because PB
>> tells
>> me that "The entered path is not a valid build tree path"
>>
>> I have to say that I'm perplexed!
>>
>> Thank you,
>> Roger
>>
>> "Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" wrote:
>>
>> > The first tab, General, in the Platform Settings dialog has a checkbox
>> > to
>> > override the root folder for WinCE...
>> >
>> > Paul T.

Steve
Sun Nov 11 08:04:30 PST 2007

>I suppose the question I should ask is: is there a good way to put the
>PB5/CE5 codebase into ClearCase?
Unfortunately, that's a painful experience and it is ClearCase's fault not
PB's

Hopefully, Richard Lee (another MVP) may see this and chime in with his
experience as I know he's dealt with PB and clear case and worked out
solutions to many of the major headaches.

Steve Maillet
http://www,EmbeddedFusion.com

Arnie
Wed Nov 14 21:04:20 PST 2007

We've had moderate success with MS TFS but haven't really tried ClearCase.

Simply checking in a .zip of the WinCERoot into our repository ... and then
as part of a nightly build process the .zip file is checked out and
unzipped. It's zipped just to save on space and time to update from TFS.

Each branch (we have multiple releases etc.) has it's own .zip of WinCERoot.
Each .zip has it's own appropriate patch level (PB QFE's from MS) depending
on when we cut the release.

We then wrote a command-line tool to build the PB workspace from each branch
and get everything right .... it overrides the default location of CERoot to
use the appropriate one, gets the path of user projects correct etc.

Just one way to do things...

-jeff

"Steve Maillet (MVP)" <nospam@EntelechyConsulting.com> wrote in message
news:90B15E80-D9D8-4368-9389-F89AABF11747@microsoft.com...
> >I suppose the question I should ask is: is there a good way to put the
>>PB5/CE5 codebase into ClearCase?
> Unfortunately, that's a painful experience and it is ClearCase's fault not
> PB's
>
> Hopefully, Richard Lee (another MVP) may see this and chime in with his
> experience as I know he's dealt with PB and clear case and worked out
> solutions to many of the major headaches.
>
> Steve Maillet
> http://www,EmbeddedFusion.com
>

Steve
Fri Nov 16 13:09:28 PST 2007

> Simply checking in a .zip of the WinCERoot into our repository ... and
> then as part of a nightly build process the .zip file is checked out and
> unzipped. It's zipped just to save on space and time to update from TFS.
>
Have you got actual numbers to back up that time and space savings claim?
I'm not trying to be argumentative but I'd be rather surprised if doing it
that way was faster or saved space. The zip file of the entire tree, which
may not have changed much at all, would be a large binary blob to the
version control system. All it takes is a one byte difference in some file
and the entire zip file is now different so the version control system must
keep a copy of the large zip as a binary item, thus dramatically increasing
the cost of even a single byte change. Furthermore the zip tool must always
process and compress EVERY file where as the version control client tools
need only check a CRC on the file to see if it has changed since last
checked out (assuming it was checked out - if it wasn't checked out it knows
it has nothing to do on check-in). Thus the version control client can
operate faster than zipping an entire directory tree as big as WINCEROOT.

If you've got hard evidence to show otherwise I'd love to see it as that
would be quite a surprise!

-Steve Maillet
http://www.EmbeddedFusion.com