Share via

Warning Message in Windows Mobile Second Edition Emulator

  • Article

If you've used the new Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition emulators with the .NET Compact Framework then you have no doubt seen this lovely message box:

The program you have installed may not display properly because it was designed for a previous version of Windows Mobile software.

This is the message that appears whenever a CAB file is installed on the device which is not marked as being orientation-aware.  For details on this and how to properly mark a CAB file, see the end of this whitepaper.

So why does it show up when you launch the debugger from VS.NET?  The message is a bit misleading because it actually has nothing to do with your Compact Framework app.  When you start the debugger, VS.NET quietly checks the device (or emulator) to see if the System.SR assembly has been installed.  If not, it's CAB file is automatically copied over and installed for you.  System.SR contains a bunch of strings that are helpful to developers while debugging but not worth eating up precious space in ROM (roughly 100-200 KB depending on the language) on every single Windows Mobile device.

System.SR shipped as part of Visual Studio.NET 2003 (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\CompactFrameworkSDK\v1.0.5000\Windows CE\Diagnostics\).  Since there is no new SDK for Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition, the System.SR CAB files have not been updated to prevent this warning message from appearing when VS.NET automatically installs it.

The points I want to make really clear are:

  • Don't worry.  This message is not related to your code.
  • It only happens once.  After VS.NET has installed this CAB on your device/emulator, it won't happen again unless you do a hard-reset of the device/emulator.
  • Update your CABs.  To prevent users from seeing this message when they install your application, follow the whitepaper guidelines.

[Author: Robert Levy]