[PythonCE] PythonCE on Windows CE 6.0

[Banibrata Dutta]

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 11:42 AM, Gadget Steve (HM) <GadgetSteve at hotmail.com
> wrote:

>
>
>  *From:* Banibrata Dutta <banibrata.dutta at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 28, 2010 6:37 AM
> *To:* Jake Anderson <yahoo at vapourforge.com> ; pythonce at python.org
> *Subject:* Re: [PythonCE] PythonCE on Windows CE 6.0
>
> On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 11:02 AM, Jake Anderson <yahoo at vapourforge.com>wrote:
>
>>   On 28/09/10 15:17, Banibrata Dutta wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 10:35 AM, Banibrata Dutta <
>> banibrata.dutta at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>  On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 10:31 AM, Jake Anderson <yahoo at vapourforge.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>>   On 28/09/10 14:58, Banibrata Dutta wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  In attempting to install PythonCE (latest, downloaded from
>>>> sourceforge), using the PythonCE.WM.cab file, on a Windows CE 6.0
>>>> mini-laptop (7" screen w/ 800x480 res, ARM VT-8500 300MHz CPU, and 256MB
>>>> DDR, 2GB Flash SSD), I get the following message popup...
>>>>
>>>> *Setup Failed:* The application cannot run on this device type. Please
>>>> install the application specific to this device type.
>>>>
>>>> Could someone kindly explain the reason why the Setup Failed. In the
>>>> past I've installed several application which are originally WM apps,
>>>> successfully on this WinCE6.0 device, without any issues.
>>>>
>>>> What could I do, to have PythonCE installed on this machine ?
>>>>
>>>> sounds like its not liking whatever CPU is set in the cab
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks for the reply, Jake. AFAIK, the CPU for which the PythonCE.WM.cab
>>> is built, is ARM (family). Of course, ARM family is quite wide, and slight
>>> differences do exist in instruction set, this is almost the first time, I
>>> ran into this could of trouble. :-)
>>>
>>> Would building PythonCE (cross compiling) specifically my machine help ?
>>>
>>>
>> Wondering if this is the culprint... this is what I find in the _setup.xml
>> inside the .cab file!! Which effectively means that that cab would not
>> install when OSVersion = 6.00 !!!
>>
>>    <parm name="*ProcessorType*" value="*2577*" />
>>    <parm name="*OSVersionMin*" value="*4.0*" />
>>    <parm name="*OSVersionMax*" value="*5.99*" />
>>    <parm name="*BuildNumberMin*" value="*0*" />
>>    <parm name="*BuildNumberMax*" value="*-536870912*" />
>>
>>
>> Don't know enough of Windows development to say for sure.
>> --
>> regards,
>>
>> thats what I would wager is the issue
>>
>>
> sure. got any ideas on how i could edit the .cab file contents ? i tried
> the approach of using WinZIP / WinRAR on PC to extract and re-make the CAB
> file as a PKzip file, after editing the .XML, but that approach didn't work.
> on trying to use some other CAB-editing tools s.a. i6comp* -- they can't
> even open the .CAB file, citing some reason as .hdr file not being found in
> the .cab !!
>
> ------------------------------
>
> You could try editing it in place with 7-zip, (www.7-zip.org), - still not
> sure it would work but thanks to the oddities of .cab files but it is one of
> the few archive manipulation programs that I know of with an edit option
> when you are browsing an archive.
>
>
Thanks for the suggestion, Steve.

Have been reading up a bit on the WinCE / WinMobile .CAB file structure, and
looks like _setup.xml is unfortunately not the only place where the
MaxVersion parameter is stored. Apparently, there is an older mechanism of
storing such parameters in a binary file, still used for backward
compatability reasons. This brings me back to the point of needing a tool,
or a "right way" of doing this. So, 7Zip method may have to wait (as last
resort).

For the moment, I'm somewhat hopeful of having found a potential solution in
form of a tool specifically meant to do this type of WinCE .CAB file
editing. It is a  WinCECABManager.exe, a commercial tool, but hopefully will
allow me to edit it. There are some other, convoluted mechanisms using some
command-line tools, but that require Visual-Studio 2005 with the CE dev
environment plugins etc., which I don't have :-(

Shall share an update here.


-- 
regards,
BD
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