Test your CF based applications on emulators which require Active Sync Connection!

Rupreet Singh Gujral — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 19:25:00 GMT

Don't have a Pocket PC? Still want to write applications which require an Active Sync Connection with Pocket PC; Here is the way.....

Below is what i did to test my RAPI based application which required an Active Sync Connection!

Installations:
1. Active Sync 3.7.1 on my PC
2. VS 2005 Device Emulators on my PC. (I think there must be separate installation for this...no need to install VS2005 for this ....you need to check for it)

Here is the procedure:
1. Navigate to your "Program Files\Microsoft Device Emulator\1.0" folder. Start the "Device Emulator Manager" by clicking "dvcemumanager.exe" file.
2. Select one emulator e.g. "Pocket PC 2003 SE Emulator" and select Connect from the Actions Menu. Pocket PC 2003 SE Emulator will start.
3. Keep the emulator selected and Select "Cradle" from the Action Menu. The PPC emulator will go into "cradle" mode. You can see the icon beside the emulator name in the Device Emulator Manager change.
4. Start Active Sync if it is not running.
5. Devices will start communicating with each other and you can sync up your data.
6. Start writing your applications :)

IrdaClient.DiscoverDevices throws InvalidProgramException - Bug in Compact Framework

Rupreet Singh Gujral — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 19:23:00 GMT

Last evening, I was trying to write an application which could detect IR Devices from my machine and give its details. I was using VS2005 Beta 2 Winforms. I added System.Net.IrDA.dll from “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SmartDevices\SDK\CompactFramework\2.0\WindowsCE\System.Net.IrDA.dll” path. The program is simple, just create an instance of IrDAClient and look for devices using IrDA.DiscoverDevices(int max) which gives an array of IrDADeviceInfo. But to my surprise, when I launch the application, it was throwing exception "IrdaClient.DiscoverDevices throws InvalidProgramException".

Reading more about InvalidProgramException exception online, MSDN says "The exception that is thrown when a program contains invalid Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) or metadata. Generally this indicates a bug in the compiler that generated the program". I was still doubtful if it was really a bug or am I doing something wrong. After working on the code and looking over internet, nothing resolved this issue. Then I thought will log this issue to MSDN Product Feedback Center. While logging the issue, I found it’s already logged and Microsoft Product Team has already confirmed that this is a reproducible at there end and validated it as a bug. Here are the bug details.

.NET Compact Framework

Test your CF based applications on emulators which require Active Sync Connection!

IrdaClient.DiscoverDevices throws InvalidProgramException - Bug in Compact Framework