Nigel was after a few pointers for Widget development for Windows Mobile 6.5, so thought useful to blog as well!!

The model for widget development is similar to that of Apple, Nokia, Opera etc – HTML, JavaScript, CSS – the platform APIs differ for example persisting setting, creating enus etc, but same concepts.

1. Developing Widgets for Windows Mobile 6.5
2. Getting started with widgets on Windows Mobile 6.5
3. Useful info on setting up dev environment – important thing is that the 6.5 is a developers toolkit and must be installed after the 6.0 refresh SDKs – see blog item...  SDK, DTK, DRK: WTF?!
4. Nick Randolph’s blog at Nick's .NET Travels - lots of great stuff on Widget Development...
5. And get yourself signed up on Codemasons site – The Codemasons' Guild
6. The W3C spec for widgets is at Widgets 1.0: Requirements

Cheers Dave

This is time well spent, check out the Windows 7 Compatibility training session.

Some of the resources referenced are

1. Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5
2. Microsoft Application Verifier
3. Chris Jackson’s “The App Compat Guy”
4. More Windows 7 Sessions

and finally head to over to “Give your application the green light”, get yourself registered, it’s free, stacks of resources and support, get ready and get your application in to the online catalogue in time for the Windows 7 Launch on October 22nd.

Cheers Dave

I’ve been running the released version of Windows 7 64 bit on my Lenovo T61p for over a week now, it’s rock solid and fast!!  Setup was very straight forward but alas for now Windows Update did not install the nVidia Quadro 570M Graphics Driver for me automatically, a bit annoying!! Anyways, simple enough to fix – see below…

1. Standard Windows 7 Install
   
2. Apply Windows Update updates
   
3. If Windows Update doesn't detect the nVidia Quadro 570M Graphics Card then go to http://catalog.update.microsoft.com, install the ActiveX control and then search for the “nvidia quadro 570m windows 7“ driver - make sure you get the driver that matches your CPU Architecture – x86 or AMD64 for 64bit.
   
   Download the appropriate CAB, create a folder somewhere, double click on the CAB to open, copy all the files from the CAB to the folder you just created and the run setup from the newly created folder...
   
4. If Aero is not enabled (which it almost certainly wont be after the graphics driver update) then from the control panel search box type "fix" without quotes and select "Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects" and run the wizard.
   
   
5. Optimise Disk Access - from device manager, select hard disk, properties and check the "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device" option as below.  This is just a me thing, always do it, read the warning etc…
   
   
6. Install Windows Virtual PC Release Candidate
   
   http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx
   
   Install Windows Virtual PC RC (Release candidate is the best current version for Windows 7 RTM). Install Windows XP Mode RC if you want to support Windows XP and integrate application in to the Windows 7 Shell - see http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/1/B/51BF59CD-8C09-4153-8C60-F801F6FF59EA/Windows%20Virtual%20PC%20and%20Windows%20XP%20Mode%20RC%20Installation%20Guide.mht
   
   See http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/08/04/windows-virtual-pc-and-win-xp-mode-rc-now-available.aspx for more info on Windows Virtual PC
   
   Virtual Disk Boot is well worth investigating - see http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/08/01/virtual-hard-disk-getting-started-guide-download-now-available.aspx
   
7. Download the Lenovo Function Button Utility for Bluetooth and Wifi from http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-68000 . Run the download file to unpack the driver then navigate to the setup directory and run setup to install the driver. I didn't install the Display Magnifier - there is one built in to Windows 7. This is the only other Lenovo driver I manually installed, I follow the less is more principle when setting up my system...
   
8. Loaded up my favourite Windows 7 Desktop Theme Pack - http://blogs.msdn.com/mswanson/archive/2009/01/25/my-windows-7-theme-pack.aspx, but yeah the themes in the box rock too!!
   
9. Added in my preferred Windows 7 Federated Search Connectors - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/742-windows-7-search-federation-providers.html
   
10. Add the Outlook Federated Search Connector (you need Office SP2 Installed) – from “Search Programs and Files” search off the start menu type “Searches” (no speech marks), select the “Searched” folder and drag and drop the Microsoft Outlook Connector to your Windows Explorer favourites.  I renamed to Outlook…
    
11. I’ve come to prefer the Taskbar pinned to the left side of the screen – habit carried over from my ASUS Eee PC 1000H netbook.  To do this right mouse click on the Taskbar, select properties and the set the Taskbar location on screen option.
    
12. Installed Office 2007, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Express and Developer Editions, Office Communicator, blah blah blah and fully service packed.
    
13. Create a Windows 7 Windows Virtual PC Image and installed Office 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 betas and pinned them to my Windows 7 host Taskbar – love it, seamless and all beta stuff running in separate environment

Cheers Dave

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