Windows embedded standard 7 runtime

2. Windows Embedded Standard 7 — E and P versions

Windows Embedded Standard 7 is available in two different license versions. The binaries of both versions are completely the same but depending on which features your image is using you will need to buy a different license for Windows Embedded Standard 7.

You can find a full list of which features are available in which version here:

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3. Media Center

Building a Media Device?

Now you can use the full Windows Media Center experience on your device. Microsoft has released Windows Media Center as a Feature Pack allowing you to boot directly into the Media Center application and make fully usage of all its features including: Live-TV, EPG, Medialibraries, Addin-System, …

The Windows Media Center is included in the P license of Windows Embedded Standard 7.

4. Compatibility

Windows Embedded Standard is fully compatible to Windows 7 Ultimate. This means that any program or driver that runs on Windows 7 Ultimate will run on Windows Embedded Standard without modification. The only important thing to ensure is that the needed dependencies are included in the image. However the Static Dependency Analyzer in the Image Configuration Editor can be a great help to find the needed Feature Packages.

5. Synchronous and Asynchronous Commands

The Image Configuration Editor allows the possibility to run synchronous and/or asynchronous commands during various phases of the image creation process.

With these commands you can deploy custom applications, settings or simply copy or delete files.

These commands can run in the following phases of the image creation process:

• WindowsPE – the command will still run during the setup in Windows PE.
• Specialize – the command will run during specialize phase.
• auditUser – the command will run during audit mode and can be used to install drivers, applications, …
• oobeSystem – the command will run with OOBE and can be used to modify the CurrentUser registry hive to apply specific settings.

6. Driver Integration

During the setup the Image Build Wizard will execute the Target Analyzer in the background to retrieve the information about which hardware is available in the device.

In the next step IBW will search for fitting drivers in the default driver set of Windows 7. Additionally it is possible to add drivers regardless if they were found during driver enumeration. This is helpfull if there are devices on a bus system which has no driver loaded during enumeration. If this happens IBW cannot find devices on that bus. If you add the drivers during setup time, the created image will install the drivers correctly after the first boot. With this option you can preload all needed drivers into your image.

An easy solution for this is to put all needed drivers into a directory on a USB drive. During setup time you can easily select this folder to include all drivers to the image. Windows will then load all needed drivers automatically.

7. Bitlocker To Go

Windows Embedded Standard also includes Bitlocker To Go.

Bitlocker To Go provides the powerful encryption of Bitlocker also for removable devices. This way you can use encrypted USB drives which can only be accessed from your Embedded system.
The encrypted drive can only be accessed if the correct password is entered after it has been connected. The password can also be stored for the specific device in the Windows Credential Manager – this way Windows will automatically grant access to the drive after it has been connected.

8. Automated Image Updates with VHD Boot

If you are planning to use VHDs on your new device you can implement an automated image update for your device.

All you need to do is to create two different VHDs – one containing only the operating system – and the other one contains the data for your application.

If you have set up your system like this you can implement a program which does the following:

• periodically checks for image updates
• download the new image VHD if there is any
• register the new VHD in the bootmanager
• register the new VHD as default OS in the bootmanager
• restart the system

This way the new image will automatically boot up – if there is a problem with the new image you can easily revert back to the previous one by selecting the old version in the bootmenu.
If everything is ok you can delete the old image and remove the bootmanager entries.

You can use the free tool BootVHD to ease the VHD registration in the bootmanager.

9. Sysprep

With Windows Embedded Standard you can use Sysprep to generalize your image and use it as master for deployment.

Sysprep can be used like on a normal Windows 7 pc to install additional drivers, software, etc. to you image and then remove all the unique id and data to prepare the image for deployment.

After sysprep has been executed the system will come up with OOBE (Out-Of-The-Box-Experience) Wizard which lets the end user configure user account, network location, etc.

OOBE can also be supressed by creating an answer file for sysprep.

More information

10. Base Image

Windows Embedded Standard contains a Base Image with an estimated footprint of 600MB which includes the minimum functionality of Windows 7.

The base image already contains base functionality like device driver installation, event logging.

All other features can be added and/or removed during the installation with Image Builder Wizard and/or DISM (or DISMUI).

11. Installation from USB

With Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro you can also include the new Modern UI to allow finger-friendly input on your devices. Even if you don’t need the new Modern interface you can make use of the new powerful WinRT library when building your applications.

12. List View

Image Build Wizard offer two different appearances to select the feature packages.

Tree View

In the tree view all features packages are grouped by their common use – e.g. .NET Frameworks are in the .NET Framework group.
Different fonts are in the “Font” group.

List View

The list view will display all feature packages in a sorted list. This will help you to find specific feature packages if you don’t know in which group they are located.

You can switch between both views on the fly by just selecting the link (“Switch to…”) above the view box in the feature package selection screen.

13. .NET Framework — Client Profile

The .NET Framework is now split into the full version of the framework and the client profile.

The full version of the framework includes all assemblies to ensure maximum compatibility however the size of the framework is also big.

If you need a small footprint and your application does not need all features of the framework you can use the .NET Framework Client Profile.

The client profile is a subset of the full .NET Framework which has a much lower footprint but still offers the most important assemblies.

To check if your application can run using the client profile please have a look at the following website:

More information

14. Enhanced Firewall

Windows contains now a powerful firewall which can be configured more granular than the XP version. It even supports multiple setups depending on the devices location. A policy can be setup to be applied only for a Private, Public or Domain network. Depending on wheter the device is located to one of the 3 network types the correct firewall policy gets enforced.

More information

15. Dependency Check

The Image Build Wizard (IBW) and also the Image Configuration Editor (ICE) offer a dependency check which ensures that all necessary feature packs are included in the image. Dependencies are split into needed dependencies which must be included to make the image run properly and optional dependencies which can be left out.

The dependency check now takes only a few seconds and is much faster than in Target Designer. This impovment is because of the new structure and the use of the Distribution Share instead of a hughe database.

16. Sensor API

Windows includes native support for senors which allows you to easily access sensors and respond to their data. For example you can easily hook up a brightness sensor to respond to the current lighting in your application or hook up a GPS sensor to get exact location data of your device.

More information

17. Static Dependency Analyzer

Finding dependencies has always been hard in previous embedded version. Tools like Dependency Walker helped to find necessary DLLs which could then be searched in the Target Designer to add the necessary component.

This is now much easier because the Image Configuration Editor offers a new tool called the Static Dependency Analyzer which automatically adds the necessary feature packages to the image. You can specify an executable (EXE) or Microsoft Installer file (MSI) to check for the dependencies. The rest is done automatically by the Static Dependency Analyzer.

18. OEM Folder

Because of the new deployment of Windows Embedded, which is similar to a regular Windows (XP, 7,…) deployment you can now also make use of the OEM Folder structure to copy customization to the target system.

For example you can use $OEM$\$$ to put files to the Windows directory and/or use $OEM$\$1 to place files in the systems root.
With a command in ICE you can even run unattended setups to install you application automatically if the setup has finished.

More information

19. No Product Activation

As with previous Windows Embedded versions (XPe, WES2009, POSReady,..) the new Windows Embedded version will not require Windows Activation.
All you need to do is to request a product key once for your project and enter it once in your runtime image. Windows is then activated and will not require activation via telephone or internet. You can clone the image as often as you need it and license it by putting the license sticker (COA) to the device.

20. Graphical User Interface for DISM

DISM is a command line tool which allows you to modify your Windows image even after deployment. However using the command line is not very comfortbale. Therefore we have created a tool called DISM UI which allows you to use a graphical wizard which looks similar to the Image Build Wizard to modify your runtime image. All you need to do with the tool is to uncheck the packages which you want to remove and check the packages you wish to add. The rest is done by DISM UI.

You can find this tool and other tools for Windows Embeded for free in our Windows Embedded Tools area: www.elbacom.com/embedded/products#Unique-Tools

21. Templates

Image Build Wizard allows the use of Templates. There are several predefined templates available which allows you to easily create a Windows image with preselected features.

You can also create templates which you can use as starting base for several device groups. Lets assume you have different device groups which should contain specific feature packages but some devices should have additional feature packages. If this is the case you can create an answer file for each device group in the Image Configuration Editor. This answer file can then be selected using the Browse button below the Templateselection in the Image Build Wizard. If you click on “Modify Features” in the next step you can add the needed features packages afterwards.

22. USB Boot

A modified USB Driver allows you to boot Windows directly from a USB drive.
Normally this is not possible because the USB driver gets loaded too late causing Windows to fail loading its files and resulting into a BSOD 0x0000007B.

The USB Boot driver ensures that the USB driver is loaded earlier to allow access to the USB drive. This way Windows can boot successfully.

You can even combine USB Boot with VHD Boot to load your complete system from just one file on your USB drive!

23. Hibernate Once Resume Many (HORM)

If you have protected your device using the Enhanced Write Filter you can make use of another great feature which optimizes your boot time.

With enabled Hibernate Once Resume Many (HORM) and enabled Enhanced Write Filter you put your device into hibernation mode once.
After that your device will always continue from the saved hibernation state which will decreases boot time!

24. Registry Filter

Registry Filter is also available in the new Windows Embedded version. This filter allows you to create exclusion in the HKLM key of the Windows Registry even if the Enhanced Write Filter or the File Based Write Filter is enabled.

The Registry Filter is important if you use EWF or FBWF to protect you device which is in a domain environment. Normally your device would loose the trust to the domain after some time because Windows cannot persist the domain key in the Windows Registry.

With Registry Filter you can solve this issue by specifying that the domain key will still be persistet even if a filter driver is enabled.

25. File Based Write Filter

The File Based Write Filter (FBWF) is the second filter driver which is available in the new Windows Embedded version. The difference between Enhanced Write Filter (EWF) and File Based Write Filter is that the FBWF works on a higher level than the EWF. Therefore FBWF has knowledge of the filesystem which enables you to make exclusions on file and folder base.

Generally FBWF redirects all the writes into a RAM overlay – this way you image is protected from any changes. However you can create exclusions to allow writes directrly to the disk.
This enables scenarios like protection the whole disk except you Data folder where all the configuration of your application is stored.

26. Custom Shell

Windows allows youu to use your application as shell. This is the best way to customize your device and boot directly into your application.
To set your application as shell you have to change only one registry key to the absolute path of the executable:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
Shell=<YourExecutable.exe>

27. Custom Windows Logon

The Windows Logon screen can now use a custom image as background. This image is chosen by Windows depending on the screen resolution.
Windows will always use the best fitting background image to ensure the quality of the image is the best.

The custom wallpaper can be specified by setting up a single policy.

28. Enhanced Write Filter

Windows XP Embedded introduced a low-level filter driver called Enhanced Write Filter (EWF) which redirects all writes to a RAM overlay. This way the image is sealed and secured from any changed.
A big advantage of the EWF in combination with a flash drive is that the flash will live much longer as only reads occur when the driver is active. Also the performance is better because of the fast RAM.

With the new version of EWF the overlay size can be much bigger than in the previous version.
Previously in WES2009 the maximum overlay size on a 32-Bit system with 2 GB RAM was 684 MB.
Now with the new version it can be 1300 MB!

On a 64-Bit system it could theoretically be up to 128 GB!

More information

29. Dialog Blocker

Windows XP Embedded had an Embedded Enabling Feature called MessageBox AutoReply. This features filtered all MessageBoxes before they appeared on the screen and commited them using the default button. The problem with this feature is that not all unwanted messages that could appear are MessageBoxes. Therefore Microsoft introduced a new Embedded Enabling Feature called Dialog Blocker.

With Dialog Blocker you can block all kinds of windows (MessageBoxes, Task Dialogs, Windows, …). The configuration can be done via a graphical editor where you can specify a list of unwanted windows by entering either the window title or the classname of a window.

30. Speech — Text To Speech and Speech Recognition

Windows Embedded included a powerful API to implement speech services.

With Text-To-Speech you can easily implement professional TTS applications with a wide range of available SAPI voices.

The improved speech recognition engine allows you to control Windows and your applications completely per voice.

More information

31. F1 — Help

Both Embedded Tools – the Image Build Wizard and the Image Configuration Editor offer a extensive help for each Feature Pack. Just press F1 at any time to open the context related help.

The documentation also offers samples how to use the tools.

32. Windows Update

Previous Embedded versions of Windows (e.g. XP Embedded, Windows Embedded Standard 2009) did not support using Windows Update. The reason for this was that Windows did not know which components are included and which not. Therefore it could happen that there is an update for a component which is not included in the image and it fails and renders Windows Update useless.

Now with the newest Embedded version Windows Update is supported. This is possible because Windows Update knows which features are installed and only fetches update for these components! Devices can now directly connect to Microsoft Update to retrieve the latest security updates for Windows.

33. Deployment Image Servicing and Management Tool

Previous Embedded versions of Windows (e.g. XP Embedded, Windows Embedded Standard 2009) did not support using Windows Update. The reason for this was that Windows did not know which components are included and which not. Therefore it could happen that there is an update for a component which is not included in the image and it fails and renders Windows Update useless.

Now with the newest Embedded version Windows Update is supported. This is possible because Windows Update knows which features are installed and only fetches update for these components! Devices can now directly connect to Microsoft Update to retrieve the latest security updates for Windows.

34. Full Control with Image Configuration Editor

The Image Configuration Editor (ICE) is a tool which works together with the Image Builder Wizard (IBW).
ICE allows you to create full configurations of your Windows Embedded Image including which features should be installed with which configuration and also allows to setup the disk layout. ICE will create an answer file containing the configuration which can be used in IBW to automatically deploy Windows image without the need to do anything on the target device.

ICE allows to create a customized IBW DVD which will run the whole setup process unattended. After it finishes you will have your fully customized Windows Embedded running on the device.

35. Feature Packages

Other than in previous embedded versions of Windows you now have about 150 Feature Packages which you can choose to add to your Embedded OS. A Feature Package is for example Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, .NET Framework 2.0, etc. The installation process with Features Packages is now much easier because they ensure that the selected feature will work without a problem. Feature Packages also offer additional features – those will be anounced here soon!

36. Image Builder Wizard and VHD Boot

The easiest way to install Windows into a VHD is to use the Image Build Wizard (IBW). This way you don’t have to care about setting up the bootmanager entries and writing the MBR. At any time during the setup you can open a command prompt with Shift+F12. If you run diskpart to create and mount a new VHD file you will be able to select the VHD as target during the setup. IBW will then automatically create the necessary bootmanager entries and will also create the MBR to ensure that Windows will boot from the VHD.

More information

37. A new setup experience with Image Build Wizard

The next version of Windows Embedded offers a whole new setup experience which makes it much simpler to setup Windows Embedded on device and also customize it to your needs. The new setup is named Image Builder Wizard which is a bootable setup DVD for either 32-Bit or 64-Bit. The installation of the Embedded operating system will be done directly on the embedded device using a easy to use graphical setup wizard which allow you to select only the features you need. Building an Windows Embedded image now takes only a few minutes!

38. Differential VHDs

VHD Boot offers an additional benefit: Differential VHDs. This way you can setup a Windows environment which is located in a master VHD file. All the changes (writes) to the image will be stored in a seperate VHD file (differential VHD) so the master image itself never gets changed. You can use this for example if you use a flash device where your master image is stored and a HDD which stores the differential VHD to increase the lifetime of the flash device. Also you could setup a PE system which will periodically erases the differential VHD file and recreates it to undo all the changes and use a fresh image all the time.

39. VHD Boot

With VHD Boot you can now natively boot your system from a Virtual Hard Disk, the file format known from Windows Virtual PC.
VHD files are Virtual Hard Disks stored in a file which can be used like real harddisks. VHDs can be partitioned and formatted just like a real harddisk.

The possibility to boot directly from a VHD offers great new advantages:

• Easy Deployment
  There is no need to create seperate image files (like .WIM) because the VHD itself is the image.
  To deploy Windows stored in a VHD you just need to copy the VHD and the bootmanager to a new primary active NTFS partition with NT60 MBR.
• Easy Backup
  To backup your system all you need to do is to create a copy of the VHD.
• Easy Update
  If you need to upgrade your whole system all you need to do is to either replace the existing VHD file or copy a new VHD file to the system and create the bootmanager entries to boot the new VHD as default OS. The next time you boot your device it will load the updated system. In case you still have the old VHD in place and something went wrong with the update you can still revert to the old OS by just selecting the previous version in the bootmanager.

40. SSD Aware

If you used flash storage devices in previous versions of Windows you had to deactivate a couple of background services to turn off unnecessary write operations to the flash. This is no longer necessary as Windows will recognize a drive as a flash storage device and will automatically disable not necessary writes which will increase performance and also increase the lifetime of the flash storage device itself.

41. Support for up to 128GB of RAM

64-Bit support allows your devices to handle more than 3 GB of RAM. Up to 128 GB of RAM is now possible – so 64-Bit should be your choice if you build devices which need more RAM.

If you are going to use new Embedded Enabling Features (EEFs) you will also notice that the new File Based Write Filter also supports RAM overlays that are bigger than 4 GB.

42. 64-Bit

Windows can now be installed also as 64-Bit version. There are several advantages in using 64-Bit than 32-Bit like a faster system and the ability to use more than 3GB of RAM. Windows-On-Windows for 32 Bit still allows users to run 32-Bit programs on a 64-Bit Windows environment without a problem. Also driver support for 64-Bit Windows is now available for a wide range of hardware.

43. MultiTouch

With a touch-sensitive screen you can use your fingers to scroll, resize windows, play media, and pan and zoom on your PC.
Use the Windows Touch API to create powerful multitouch aware applications. .NET 4 also support MultiTouch and allows you to easily create multitouch aware applications to drive your applications with the newest input technology.

More Information

44. BranchCache

BranchCache optimizes the use of WAN if many devices are in a local network and need to download the same files from a server.

If a client downloads a file from a server the server will provide the file to the client for the first time.

When a second client in the same LAN asks for the same file upon the server will recognize that this file does already exists in the clients LAN. The server will point the client to the other machine which downloaded the file previously. The file will be copied locally – this will save bandwith, time and cost.

BrachCache ensures that the files match – if a downloaded file is changed it will be transferred again the next time a client asks for it.

More information

45. DirectAccess

DirectAccess automatically connects your device to the corporate network whenever internet is available. There is no need to dial in via VPN anymore – the connection to the corporate network will be established even before a user logs on.

With DirectAccess enabled you can administrate your device whenever it has internet access – you can easily access it like any pc on the local network.

To use DirectAccess you will need Windows Server 2008 R2.

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46. Language Packs

There will be 36 language packs available for Windows. Windows itself is language neutral and can be translated in the language you need on the fly by installing the approperiate language pack. Also a switch between languages is possible with few clicks during runtime.

Windows is translated 100% into the available language packs and there will not be any English strings anywhere in the system.
Smbolic links helps to direct applications and the user himself to the correct folders (such as Users) as these folder will also appear in the selected language.

More information

47. Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)-independent

Beginning with Windows Vista you can maintain a single Windows image that applies to all HAL types. There is no need to create special images for single core and multi cores – Windows will automatically select the approperiate HAL for your system at boot. However, you will need to maintain different images for different processor architectures (32-bit and 64-bit platforms).

48. AppLocker

Prevent unwanted applications to run on your Embedded device with AppLocker by setting up Blacklists or Whitelist of applications.
The AppLocker policy can either be configured as local policy or can be deployed via group policy in a domain environment.

3 ways to configure your Blacklist/Whitelist:

Path
Define an application by its program path.

Hashvalue
Define an application by its unique hash.

Publisher
All applications by a specified publisher. These applications must be signed by the publisher.
This is the recommended way of defining an application pool which is [not] allowed to run.

49. Bitlocker

Bitlocker completly encrypts your drives including pagefile and hibernationfile. There are different possibilities how to use Bitlocker:

TPM Module

The encrypton key can be saved on a TPM chip. This way the disk will only work on the hardware which encrpyted the disk and Windows will boot automatically without the need to enter a key on each boot.
If the disk will be taken out and will be connected to a different hardware all the data is encrypted. If the disk is inserted again into the original hardware Windows can boot.

USB Key

The encryption key can be saved on a USB key. Bitlocker will only allow access to the disk if the USB key is connected. If not the disk drive remains encrypted.

PIN Entry

On every boot Bitlocker will ask a user to enter a password. If the password is correct Bitlocker will allow access to the disk.

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