COM Port Enumeration

If you want to enumerate the available COM ports on your WM device, there is a very simple solution: look under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Drivers\Active for all keys that have the Name value starting with the "COM" string. With some luck, you can even find a FriendlyName value under the key specified by the Key value.

The only problem with this very simple method is that it does not enumerate the Microsoft Bluetooth stack emulated COM ports. If you create a partnership with a device that has the serial port profile, you will be able to assign a free COM port to it. This COM port works like any regular serial port but does not show up in the list of active drivers on the registry. Microsoft decided to enumerate all Bluetooth virtual COM ports under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\
Software\Microsoft\Bluetooth\Serial\Ports. To find all available COM ports you must enumerate all the child keys and look for the Port value under each key.

Interestingly, the Widcomm stack does put the virtual COM ports where they should be (or at least where I expected them to be).

VS2008 Install Heads Up

Before you install Visual studio 2008, make sure you read the readme file. There are two important implications for native and mobile developers: SQL CE 3.5 must be uninstalled prior to installinv VS2008 and the Windows Mobile 6 SDK will have to be uninstalled and reinstalled after installing VS2008.

VS2008 is out!

Check out the subscriber downloads in MSDN!

Windows Live

Off-topic: Today I noticed that for the first time in the last few years Google is not on the top of the list of search engine referrals on my comany's site web log data. Out of the blue (or maybe not) Windows Live is leading the searches! This is intersting news for a chart that used to show a huge Google bar and essentially nothing else.

Performance Improvements in VS 2005

Jim Springfield has just posted in the Visual C++ Team Blog a very interesting piece of information: there is a new performance improvement QFE for Visual Studio 2005. This download addresses a number of performance issues and its features will roll over to VS 2008. I'm getting it right now to give it a spin.

Carousel Demo

Now that the carousel code is working correctly across a range of devices, I decided to upload it as a preview (download here). The code illustrates the carousel animation and user control as a strip on the child window of the WTL main frame. I'm still wondering how this "control" should be implemented, either as a "widget" on the main frame or as a toolbar-like control.

The main frame approach would implement the carousel code in the main frame allowing it to correctly resize the child window and even allowing the application to change the child view (like in a property sheet). With this approach it might also be easier to implement a means to change the location of the bar whan the screen is rotated. In fact, the carousel looks much nicer in a vertical position when you rotate your screen to landscape (right or left would be up to you).

Implementing this as a toolbar control would have the advantage of allowing the developer to reuse the code outside the main window, especially on dialogs and modified property sheets...

While I think about what to do, please do take a look at the code. The icons were "created" with Axialis IconWorkshop, one of the best icon editors around. Please note that these icons can only be used by registered users of the product and I'm not sure that you can reuse them on your applications.