Emulator

Article
06/30/2006

The Emulator is a tool that mimics the behavior of hardware that supports a Microsoft® Windows® CE–based platform. With the Emulator, you can design and build a Windows CE–based platform and test it using software that mimics hardware rather than testing the platform on hardware. For more information, see Creating an Emulator-Compatible Platform.

The Emulator also allows you to provide an application developer with a virtual hardware platform that the developer can use to test applications for your platform. For information about how the Emulator may be used, see Emulator Usage Scenarios. For information about supporting the Emulator in the software development kit (SDK) for a platform, see Emulator Support for an SDK.

You can specify a screen resolution for the Emulator. You can also include a skin for the Emulator. An Emulator skin changes the appearance and functionality of the graphical user interface (GUI) for the Emulator. For information about the skin for the Emulator, see Emulator Skin.

Host-key combinations provide special functionality in the Emulator. Using certain key combinations, you can control the operation of the Emulator. For more information, see Emulator Key Combinations.

Each integrated development environment (IDE) session supports a single instance of the Emulator. To download a new operating system (OS) image to the Emulator, first close the current Emulator session or start a new IDE session. For information about downloading an OS image to the Emulator, see Downloading an OS Image to the Emulator.

Note The Emulator does not mimic hardware performance. The performance of the Emulator depends on the speed of your CPU and the amount of system memory in your development workstation. You may encounter slower performance with the Emulator than with an actual hardware device running the same application. For more information, see Emulator Architecture.

Emulator

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