It's always good practice to clone a reference BSP instead of modifying the original version. This maintains the orginal as a reference, and eliminates problems if the BSP vendor provides an update. This applies to BSPs provided by Microsoft, as well as BSPs for reference platforms provided by third parties.

This same principle applies to the DeviceEmulator BSP. The DeviceEmulator BSP provides a great way to investigate the features and functionality of Windows Embedded CE 6.0. But before using it, you should clone it so you can work with your own version.

It's simple to clone a BSP. The cloning tool is available from the Tools | Platform Builder for CE 6.0 menu in Visual Studio 2005. The Clone BSP dialog is self explanatory, and you'll have your own version of the DeviceEmulator BSP in no time.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't quite end here. You will find that you get an error during the build process when makeimg is unable to find kitl.dll. Sure enough, kitl.dll does not exist in the flat release directory. The original DeviceEmulator BSP builds successfully, so why doesn't the clone?

The build failure is due to a bug in the cloning tool. The DeviceEmulator BSP makes use of an optional platform batch file that is called during the makeimg phase of the build process. This batch file copies one of two possible kitl dlls to the flat release directory, renaming it to kitl.dll in the process. The build process requires the batch file to follow a strict naming convention, consisting of -preri.bat. If the file is not named correctly, it will not be executed.

The original batch file exists in the FILES directory of the BSP. This causes it to be copied to the flat release directory, where it is executed during the build process. The original batch file is named DeviceEmulator-preri.bat. The Clone BSP tool should have renamed this during the cloning operation, but did not. You must manually rename the batch file based on the name of your BSP in order for the cloned BSP to build successfully. Note that most BSPs will not have this problem, as it is not a commonly used feature.

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Dean Ramsier
Senior Software Engineer
Professional Engineering Services
BSQUARE Corporation | Contact Me!