Memory Architecture (Windows Embedded CE 6.0)

  • Article

1/6/2010

In any Windows Embedded CE–based device, ROM stores the entire OS, in addition to the applications that come with the OS design. Windows Embedded CE supports a 32-bit (4-GB) address space.

When a process initializes, the OS maps the following DLLs and memory components:

  • Some execute-in-place (XIP) DLLs
  • Some read/write sections of other XIP DLLs
  • All non-XIP DLLs
  • The stack
  • The heap
  • A data section for each process

DLLs are controlled by the loader, which loads all the DLLs at the same address for each process. The stack, the heap, and the executable (.exe) file are created and mapped from the bottom of the address space. The bottom 64 KB of memory always remains free.

**DLLs and ROM DLL read/write sections are loaded from 0x40000000 to 0x5FFFFFFF.

For information about the Windows Embedded CE virtual memory map, see Virtual Memory Layout: Windows CE 5.0 vs. Windows Embedded CE 6.0.**

See Also

Concepts

Kernel Overview
Virtual Memory
Demand Paging
Heaps
Stack
Static Data Blocks
Memory-mapped Files
Paging Pool