Which OS is Pocket PC based on?

[Swanny]

Hello all,

I just had a quick question that poped into my mind.

Is Windows Pocket PC based on the 9x or the NT kernel? Or did MS actually make a whole new OS for it (which I doubt)?


Thanks,
Swan

 

[stephbu]

PocketPC was based on the Windows CE kernel which was written pretty much from the ground up. It planted its roots prior to both 9x and NT kernels with pieces as far back as the early 1990's

There is cross pollenation of programming techniques and features as all codebases evolved, e.g. in globalization, thread scheduling, memory management, device abstraction, and user input. Not that isn't expected in a company that has spent the last 25 years writing OS pieces.

Why would you doubt they'd do that?

 

[spyordie007]

Considering the differing hardware archetecture and OS components it's not that surprising that they had "seperate starts." As was stated above Windows CE has been around for a long time (I remember carrying around my Phillips Velo 1 probably 6 years ago now).

 

[Swanny]

Yes, I had assumed that it came from where ever Windows CE came from. I guess I just sort of assumed that CE had evolved out of a scaled down version of the desktop OS.

 

[stephbu]

CE was spawned out of efforts in 1990 or so with hardware manufacturers to make Pen computing happen. Anyone remember Pen for Windows?

[almost cue for dream sequence]

 

[Ionizer86]

Pocket PC 2000/2002 are both built on CE 3.0, and Pocket PC 2003 is built on CE 4.2.