Tech Note 21: Devices Supported

April 6, 2011

© NSB Corporation. All rights reserved.

NS Basic/CE runs on the vast majority of Windows Mobile and Windows CE devices. However, there are quite a number of variations of these devices.

Here, by version of Windows CE, are the devices that are supported. You can get the version of Windows CE from the Settings...System screen on the device if you are not sure.

There is also a database that tracks the specifications of most PDAs. When last checked, it had over 1700 CE devices listed. See http://pdadb.net/.

To understand the differences between different Windows CE devices, see this Brief History of Windows CE.

Windows Embedded Handheld

Based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Embedded CE, Windows Embedded Handheld devices are aimed at the business market, while Windows Phone 7 is aimed at the consumer market. NS Basic/CE runs well on these devices.

Windows Phone 7

Microsoft has restricted development on Windows 7 to a new variation of their own tools. Nothing that was written for older Windows Mobile devices will work. This has affected thousands of developers, including us. We hope they will realize the importance of allowing older apps to run soon. In the meantime, NS Basic/CE will not run on these devices.

Windows Mobile / Windows Phone

NS Basic/CE supports all Windows Mobile devices with touch screens. That includes Windows Mobile Versions 5, 6, 6.1 and 6.5.

Technically, Windows Mobile is a special build of Windows CE, with additional modules and features to make it consumer ready. You will find various releases of Windows Mobile listed below under the version of Windows CE they are built on.

Windows Embedded CE 6.0

Windows Embedded CE 6.0 (yes, they changed the name again) devices do not all work with NS Basic/CE. NS Basic/CE has been tested on Microsoft's beta emulator for Windows CE 6.0 and it runs properly. Devices need to be tested individually to see if they work. If you have tested a device, please let us know so we can add it here.

Works with NS Basic/CE 8.0

  1. Comfile CUWIN

Does not work with NS Basic/CE 8.0

  1. Motorola MC3190
  2. Newland Portable Data Collector

Windows CE 5.0

Note that Windows Mobile 6 devices actually run an updated version of Windows CE 5.0.

If you have a Windows CE 5 device that is not listed above, we may still be able to help you with our Embedded Device Support Program.

Smartphone devices (other than Pocket PC Phone Edition) are not supported. The ROMs of these devices do not have the MFC components that NS Basic/CE needs to run. Also, since they do not have touchscreens, the user interface is quite different.

Windows CE .NET (also known as Windows CE 4.x)

If you have a Windows CE .NET device that is not listed above, we may still be able to help you with our Embedded Device Support Program.

The Casio ET-500M30 and DT-X10 devices, using Windows CE 4.1, are not supported. They use ARM Processors in ARMV4T mode. More recent Casio units should be OK.

Smartphone devices (other than Pocket PC Phone Edition) are not supported. The ROMs of these devices do not have the MFC components that NS Basic/CE needs to run.

Legacy Devices

The devices in this section are supported by versions of NS Basic up to 7.0. Support for them was dropped in NS Basic/CE 8.0, introduced in 2009, about seven years after the last device in this section was manufactured.

Windows CE 3.0

Windows CE 2.1

Since Microsoft's development tools (which we use to build NS Basic/CE itself) can no longer target pre Windows CE 3.0 devices, the latest version of NS Basic/CE that will run on them is Version 2.0.