Development Environment

Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and earlier support projects for Windows CE / Windows Mobile, producing executable programs and platform images either as an emulator or attached by cable to an actual mobile device. A mobile device is not necessary to develop a CE program. The .NET Compact Framework supports a subset of the .NET Framework with projects in C#, and VB.NET, but not Managed C++. Microsoft removed this feature from Visual Studio 2010. A standalone IDE for Windows Phone 7 (the Windows Phone Developer Tools) is available instead.

CodeGear Delphi Prism

CodeGear Delphi Prism, which runs in Visual Studio, also supports the .NET Compact Framework and thus can be used to develop mobile applications. It employs the Oxygene compiler created by RemObjects, which targets .NET, the .NET Compact Framework, and Mono. Its command-line compiler is available free of charge.

Free Pascal and Lazarus

Free Pascal introduced the Windows CE port in version 2.2.0, targeting ARM and x86 architectures. Later the Windows CE header files were translated for use with Lazarus, a rapid application development (RAD) software package based on Free Pascal. Windows CE applications are designed and coded in the Lazarus integrated development environment (IDE) and compiled with an appropriate cross compiler.

Basic4ppc

Basic4ppc which is a programming language similar to Visual Basic, targets the .NET Compact Framework and supports Windows CE and Windows Mobile devices.

GLBasic

GLBasic is a very easy to learn and use BASIC dialect that compiles for many platforms, including Windows CE and Windows Mobile. It can be extended by writing inline C/C++ code.

LabVIEW

LabVIEW Is a graphical programming language, supporting many platforms, also windows CE.

Platform Builder

This programming tool is used for building the platform (BSP + Kernel), device drivers (shared source or custom made) and also the application. This is a one step environment to get the system up and running. One can also use Platform Builder to export an SDK (software development kit) for the target microprocessor (SuperH, x86, MIPS, ARM etc.) to be used with another associated tool set.

Embedded Visual C++ (eVC)

The Embedded Visual C++ tool is for development of embedded application for Windows CE based devices. This tool can be used standalone using the SDK exported from Platform Builder or using the Platform Builder using the Platform Manager Connectivity setup.

AutoHotkey

A port of the open source macro-creation and automation software utility AutoHotkey is available for Windows CE, which allows the construction of macros and simple GUI applications developed by systems analyst Jonathan Maxian Timkang.