Upgrading the OS on a thin client machine (RBT-320)

[bot2600]

I have an RBT-320 (thinclient) with Windows CE.NET (5.0) on it and would like to upgrade it to a newer version of Windows CE. Anyone have any experience doing this sort of thing that could point me to some reading/hints?

Thanks,
Bob

 

[yinan]

Both of those OSs are old and way out of date. The current embedded OS is Windows Embedded Standard 2009 (WES 2009). To install it is the same as any other OS. Boot from flash and follow the prompts.

 

[bot2600]

Thanks for the info. I have done a little more research as well, and it seems the CPU in that little thing is actually x86, I think I am going to try to install the beta windows 7 embedded. I have downloaded it, just havent had an opportunity to play with it yet.

 

[yinan]

If you have any questions shoot me a message.

 

[bot2600]

Hey, Yinan,

I realize it is a year later (blame mad A.D.D) but I am around to this again.

I tried to get the device to boot from a USB thumb drive without success, and during power up, it sees the device as 'Bootable USB Device' but I haven't been able to actually get it to boot to it.

I have embedded standard on it and was going to try to take the easy way out and do an install. If I need to go down the path of Compact 7, I am willing to try that, but it seems like there is a ton more information needed there (what memory address to boot etc).

Do you know the normal magic keystroke to get an embedded device to boot to the USB drive? I tried the normal buttons you would use from a Windows PC (del, ins, F2,F5,F8,F10 etc) without success.

I opened the box up and there is only one jumper (3 pairs of pins). I tried moving the jumper and seeing if that would allow me to boot to the usb but no joy.

Any advice or ideas would be greatly appreciated, I have downloaded the eval of Platform Builder, so I am not averse to trying that path, if you have any good reading about it that would be nice. Seems like a much steeper learning curve to deploy OSes to embedded devices!

Thanks,
Bob

 

[Modelworks]

OS install on embedded devices I do quite a bit, ARM, Mips, X86, whatever , and it really depends on the specifics of each device. You can't use a install from one device and carbon copy it to another. Both may be x86 but that just means they are compatible with some x86 instructions and the similarities stop there. One device may not support all the instructions that the other does or it may have a special boot loader requirement, ports can be configured differently, etc.

Normally the process of installing an embedded OS is to make a list of all the hardware and any quirks it has. Configure the OS to match it, sometimes requiring you to compile a few files, then load the OS . Sometimes the loading process requires using a JTAG to replace the bootloader or change configuration settings stored in NVRAM. Sometimes the OS is stored in flash only which means you may need to squash or pack the install so it fits within the flash. When you start installing embedded OS you have to basically throw out anything you learned about pc installs because it rarely applies.

 

[bot2600]

Awesome, thanks for the info. Many of the things you said are definitely true at a glance. The CPU is an AMD Geode of some variety, and the internal drive is a flash drive, though it is connected to what appears to be a IDE notebook drive connector. (The age of the device would put it in that timeframe)

If you have any recommended reading where I could go and get my learn on, I am a developer by nature and have been interested in learning some of the dark arts of the embedded space for awhile, but it sure looks scary

I have an install disk for Windows 7 Embedded off of MSDN, and it looked like I might could make the package by booting off the device and doing a small footprint install that way, but I have no idea really. It does currently run on compact edition (5.0 even) instead of just embedded, but I wanted to get out easy.

I guess I'll pop into platform builder and see if I can find a premade BSP for it, I would think that getting a deploy together myself would probably be way beyond what I can currently do.

Thanks again,
Bob