The newObjects ActiveX Pack1 Family contains the following components:

• newObjectsPack1.dll - AXPack1 core. About 30 COM classes covering wide range of features. Overview - AXPack1 WEB page.
• NetStreams.dll - TCP/IP and IRDA streams. Overview - NetStreams WEB page. Requires newObjectsPack1.dll.
• SQLITECOMUTF8.DLL - SQLite2 based database engine and interface to it. Overview - SQLite COM WEB page. Requires newObjectsPack1.dll.
• SQLITE3COMUTF8.dll - SQLite3 based database engine and interface to it (advanced features). Overview SQLite3 COM WEB page. Requires newObjectsPack1.dll.
• HashCryptStreams.dll - Hash functions/streams, Cryptography functions/streams etc. Overview HashCryptStreams WEB page. Requires newObjectsPack1.dll for some of the stream variants of the algorithms.
• nwMicroHost.exe - Micro Script Host simple unified scripting host for all the Windows platforms.

The table below lists the most important downloads that you may need. For Samples and other supplementary materials see on the AXPack1 Family site. 

AXPack1 Family downloads, tools and documentation.

* - This version supports a few additional features available only on the Pocket PC 2002 platform and later. To keep the re-distributions clean we recommend using the standard PPC binaries for public applications. This special edition is recommended for private/internal applications only.

** - Note that the user interface of the MicroHost application included is not suitable for smartphone platforms and other platforms without touch screen or a pointing device. If you need the script host get the smartphone version. The library files (DLL) have no user interface and are not platform specific and will work correctly on any CE.NET based platform - including smartphone.  

Quick information

Requirements

Windows CE version of the newObjects ActiveX Pack1 family officially supports Windows CE 3.0, CE.NET and later. This includes Pocket PC, Pocket PC 2002, 2003/SE and later, Smartphone platforms and other variants of the Windows CE/CE.NET OS - WEB pads, tablets etc. 

The general requirement for newObjects ActiveX Pack1 Family components on Windows CE/CE.NET is the Standard SDK and COM support, of course. However for the most popular version of the Windows CE - the Pocket PC 2000/2002/2003 there is a special edition which is also able to use some features provided by the Pocket PC shell. On the devices without standard shell (where the manufacturer may choose to put custom shell or no shell at all) we cannot count on the shell features and the standard versions for non-specific Windows CE do not include these features (see also the comments further in this page). 

Notes: Although the CE versions will run also on Pocket PC-s it is strongly recommended to use the special Pocket PC version of the DLL - especially if you want to re-distribute it with your products.

Special version for PocketPC 2002 and later is available (includes also version information support for example). The Pocket PC versions are also compatible with Pocket PC 2002, Windows Mobile 2003/SE and further. The NetStreams and SQLite COM support exactly the same functionality on all the platforms.

On Windows Mobile 2003 and later VBScript language is often not pre-installed. It is included with the eVB runtime files - see this page:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/windowsmobile/downloads/evb.aspx
 To install VBScript language to your device you will actually need only the vbscript.dll from them if you are not going to use the eVB as development environment. Also you can get the vbscript.dll from the corresponding SDK (for pocket pc devices you can get it from older SDK-s - such as PPC2002 or even PPC2000). 

Installation notes

The PC version has an installer that also installs the NDL (newObejcts Development Library) documentation, SDK materials for different purposes. There are packages for PC only and PC + Pocket PC. The combined package also allows installation of the ActiveX Pack1 through Active Synch to Pocket PC and compatible devices (PPC 2000/2002/2003/SE and so on). 

For the other platforms the ZIP files above contain only the binary files - the newobjectspack1.dll and the nwmicrohost.exe. You can include them in your installation packages or install them manually on the device.

Manual installation: 

You need to copy and register the newobjectspack1.dll and optionally the NetStreams.dll and the SQLITECOMUTF8.DLL (if you are going to use them too) on your device. The location is not important, however you should prefer non-removable storage if the device has extended amount of internal memory. The nwmicrohost.exe (Micro Script Host) does not require COM registration and also supports COM DLL registration/unregistration (you can register the DLL files through it). Copy it to the device, start it there and look in the "Tools" menu for the register/unregister COM DLL options. 

When installing manually note that you must register the DLL before running any scripts. Failing to do so will cause the host to issue errors.

After installation you may need some samples to test and see how the Micro Script Host works. You can download a little package with several samples here.

If you are new to Windows CE.

In contrast to the desktop Windows OS Windows CE (Compact edition) is not a monolith package you get and install on a random device. The manufacturers of the device compile an image of the OS for their device and they may include or not include certain features of the OS in it. For example they may choose between IE full browser, Pocket IE and no browser at all. Therefore knowing that you have Windows CE on your device does not give you complete information about what you have there. 

However there are standard OS "sets" dedicated for certain device types. Microsoft advertises them as operating systems for certain device types, but they are nothing else but standard set of Windows CE features plus a few specific features. Of course, the end-user does not need to know deep details about this - it is more convenient to have a separate name for each OS "set" in order to avoid the total confusion of the end-users. This is why Microsoft decided to name for example "Pocket PC" the Windows CE 3.0 standard set for pocket devices. Almost all the Pocket sized Windows CE devices are Pocket PC based. There are only a few popular exceptions - like Casio BE300 which is Windows CE 3.0 based but is not Pocket PC compatible.

If you are going to develop software for Windows CE/CE.NET I strongly recommend you consult the Microsoft documentation and learn about the OS variants ("sets"). .

Aside of that there is a so called "Standard SDK" which is included in the most variants of the OS. It is excluded only on some very specific devices which are not designed for the retail market (for example industry control devices, embedded computers in certain machines - ovens, washing machines etc.). Anyway even in such specific areas the manufacturers include it if they are not too restricted by the available memory space. It is the only requirement for AXPack1 Family which means the family is compatible with virtually all the devices on the market. 

COM specifics: As you may already know there is no FileSystemObject for Windows CE and the ActiveX Pack1 is the only alternative. It fills many gaps - supports not only file access but also OLE files, useful structural features (dictionaries/collections, configuration files), DB-like access over flat files (separate feature from the full SQL database engine supplied by SQLite COM component of the family), custom script hosting, even handling background threads running scripts. However Windows CE lacks one very important COM feature we all use without noticing on the desktops - Single threaded COM apartments and Out-of-process COM objects sharing (access objects shared by other applications). This means there is no application automation opportunities from an external process, nor opportunity to use simple solutions for some in-process COM tricks. You will find out that there are no Pocket Excel/Word objects shared for external applications. If you look at the HKEY_CLASES_ROOT on your device you will see that the COM objects registered are only a few. So, you can hardly count on the COM objects you know from the Desktop - the ActiveX Pack1, ADO (which is optional), Pocket Outlook and several other COM objects supplied by other vendors are almost all you have to work with. 

Redistribution policies for Windows CE/CE.NET devices

The newObjects ActiveX Pack1 is FREEWARE unless it is put in the system ROM/flash ROM by the manufacturer (if you are interested in including it into your device image please contact us). However there are certain technical considerations which are intended to simplify the re-distribution and help the developers avoid potential compatibility problems now and in the future. Here are the reasons we have in mind:

1. As far as it is possible we want to have a minimal number of different binary distributions compatible with as many devices as possible.

2. The re-distributed binaries should be "replaceable" without problem by the new versions. In other words there must be only one standard binary distribution for each type of device.

3. Advanced versions that benefit of all the specific features of a specific platform, but incompatible with the most other similar platforms should not be re-distributed with downloadable public software.

Specific versions for specific platforms can be obtained, but the developers who use them should pay attention to the way they re-distribute them. For example you must avoid misleading the users download an application designed for a custom WEB pad device to a Pocket PC device. Even if your current version is compatible with the both devices a little change in a later version may cause incompatibility with the Pocket PC devices and the users may complain about that.  

Micro Script Host (Also called shortly Microhost) notes:

The simple script host distributed with the newObjects ActiveX Pack1 Family also follows the version guidelines listed above. However it is intended for developers and slight incompatibilities are a bit more tolerable. For example Windows CE general version can be installed on Pocket PC and the only problem will be a slight inconvenience with its user interface. Anyway please re-distribute the binary from the appropriate distribution package if possible.

What is not supported in the Windows CE version:

Only the IniFile and SFShellLink components are not supported from the PC version on any Windows CE platform. Instead of the IniFile you should use the most powerful ConfigFile object to store UDS data which is also cross-platform compatible and can be used for much wider variety of purposes (in fact it can be used even as XML alternative in many applications).

SFMain.GetSpecialPath is supported only on some platforms (Pocket PC).

SFMain.GetVersionInfo is not supported except in the special versions of the DLL for Pocket PC 2002.

COMThread and COMApartment objects must not be used to run scripts on Windows CE devices because of the Windows CE lack of support for single threaded COM apartments. Instead you can run scripts in background threads using the COMScriptThread object which is cross-platform compatible and does not require help from the system COM facilities to synchronize the script calls. However there is no such limitation if you want to call time consuming methods of COM objects written in C++ in a separate thread.

Is there support for earlier Windows CE versions (such as Windows CE 2.11)?

Officially no, but we have functional versions for some devices based on CE 2.11 (such as Handheld PC Pro) and we will publish some of them if someone is interested (If you can't see them here - please ask). Versions earlier than CE 2.11 cannot supported at all. Note that on Windows CE 2.11 some of the features may not work properly - you should test carefully.

Device manufacturers

 If you need a version especially built for your device - without some features for instance please contact us.