Connect Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone Emulator to the Internet on Vista
The easiest way to connect Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone emulator to the Internet in Visual Studio 2005 on Windows Vista is to cradle the emulator, however the problem is… (with a step by step guide and images)
Here comes again. There was one of my old projects on Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone needed to be changed a little and re-released. I just re-installed my laptop couple weeks ago. Which means I have to install all the mobile SDKs and setup my development environment once again.
Finding and installing those SDKs is easy. The problem only comes when you trying to get internet working on your emulator. The method I was using before is to get NE2000 card working on the emulator. In order to do that, you will need a virtual network drive (or something) installed first on Windows Vista. And I found that my VPN always having troubles after I install it. That’s why I won’t recommend this method to anyone trying to set it up the first time.
So I figure as long as I can cradle Windows Smartphone 5.0 emulator, I should be able to access the Internet by using pass-through.
To cradle Windows Smartphone 5.0 emulator on Windows Vista. You will need:
- Install Windows Mobile Device Center (it really is Vista version of ActiveSync). Select DMA for Allow connections to one of the following
- Open Device Emulator Manager from Tools menu of Visual Studio 2005
- Open your emulator by selecting Windows mobile 5.0 Smartphone Emulator, right click and select Connect
- With the emulator selected still in Device Emulator Manager, right click and select Cradle
Image: Windows Mobile Device Center Settings
Image: Device Emulator Manager in Visual Studio 2005
If you see nothing happened to your Windows Mobile Device Center, it doesn’t mean you missed some steps from the above. It happened only because the Device Emulator 1.0 is the one comes with Visual Studio 2005 has this cradle problem on Windows Vista.
The solution is to download Microsoft Device Emulator 2.0 and by installing 2.0, it will replace the old one. Read this note from its download page: “DeviceEmulator 2.0 has taken a few design changes to work with the Windows Vista operating system that enables the emulator to be cradled using the Windows Mobile Device Center”.
This is the result after upgrading to Device Emulator 2.0 and cradling the emulator: Smartphone Emulator 5 Cradled
I would select “Connect without setting up your device” . The emulator should have Internet access now.
Windows smartphone emulator with Internet access
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