What real world projects based on Windows Embedded do you know?

Question

What real world project based on Windows Embedded do you know? Please provide some details such as description, project domain, key feature and why Windows Embedded is used?

Answer 1

The only one I can think of is a nice simple library implementation where silent machines are in use and as such low power is needed. Their machines only connect to the internet and are fan-less. I could imagine the same argument used in radio station studios instead of KVM to a server room.

Sorry these are a little boring but that's all I've seen.

Answer 2

You can find real world project in the case study page of the Windows Embedded Web site. All the products described there are actual products running Windows Embedded and industrialized: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/about/casestudies.mspx

-Olivier

Answer 3

Can't disclose the details. But most of the navigation displays on some very large ships are running Delphi on XP-embedded.
Anywhere that you aren't trying to save the last few c, you can fit a PC104 board with a low power x86 CPU and you want a reasonably same development environment it's a good choice.

Answer 4

I presume you are interested in Windows Embedded XP/Standard, and not Windows CE (they are very different).

I have recently used Windows Embedded for a marine navigation device (COM Express, Atom) and a retail kiosk device (ATX, Atom).

In both cases, the user facing application required a Windows environment and the devices could have their power removed unexpectedly (no controlled shutdown). OS servicing was also a concern.

We chose WES2009 for the component approach (you can trim the OS, removing unneeded features and hence reducing the support/security overhead) and embedded enabling features (mainly file system write filters, that protect the system from tampering and unexpected power removal).

Windows Embedded also uses the same device drivers as desktop Windows, which saved development effort.

The downsides of this choice (over, say, Linux+Mono) were the cost of the development seat and the runtime licenses. Windows Embedded Studio (for WES2009) is also very graphically driven which (in my experience) makes SCM more difficult.