Windows CE Device: Deploy using a .zip or a .cab on headless device?

Question

I have a Windows CE device that we are deploying, but we have complete control of the software installed on it.

This is not a typical Windows Mobile device, this is a headless device that the user will not interact with. I know that on PDA-style WinCE devices, the .cab file is the preferred application distribution method.

However, on a headless device, we will be writing some type of upgrade/patch server that will ping a server for updates, download them, and auto-install when they are available.

Do I still want a .cab file, or is a .zip (or even something else) better?

What are the requirements for a .cab file - what kind of restrictions / requirements might get in the way and be an annoyance? What are the benefits?

Answer 1

I'd stick with CAB as a package since even headless devices can use the CAB extraction tool. If you ZIP it, then you have to add a ZIP support library and app. CAB also has the ability to add registry entries and define far more disparate target locations than a zip (I want x.dll in \Windows but prog.exe in my program folder - try that with a ZIP).

One thing to keep in mind is that wceload (the CAB extractor) uses a UI by default, so you're going to want to use things like the /noui switch for it.

If you're true headless this may not be an issue (not done that in a long while) but a fairly common "headless" configuration has display support and either the display simply isn't hooked up or is something like a NOP VGAFLAT driver. This allows you to run a shell and have access to all the nice shell APIs, but adds to the challenge that GWES will render dialogs onto the non-existent display.

OpenNETCF also has a CAB Installer SDK that you can use to completely remove any UI with by creating your own installer app. This may or may not be useful depending on the how and when the install happens (through HKLM\Init or otehr for example).