“Cashmere” aka Windows CE 6.0 R3 has been announced!

Hi folks,

lately there had been a lot of fuss about what “Cashmere” is. And no, it is NOT Windows Embedded CE 7.0 and neither does it have dual-core support nor is it a plug-in for Visual Studio 2008 as some people have suggested in the past.

I could go on and on with this list…but let’s talk about what “Cashmere” really is: well it’s a city in Chelan County, Washington, USA some 140 miles east of Redmond with a population of about 3,000 inhabitants.

Seriously, “Cashmere” has now been announced to RTM on September 28th as Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3! Therefore it is an update package for Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2, still running as a plug-in for Visual Studio 2005. After playing around with the beta version, as CTP (Community Technology Preview) participant, for about a month and a half, I am at long last allowed to talk about “Cashmere”.

So what’s new in Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3:

• Silverlight for Windows Embedded: a native user interface development framework based on both C++ and Microsoft Silverlight 2


• Connection Manager: which has already proven it's abilities under Windows Mobile and establishes and manages network connections such as wireless Internet and Bluetooth connections.


• Touch Gestures: single-touch gestures only at this point.


• Internet Explorer Embedded: improvements such as Silverlight for Windows Embedded UI development, better zoom functionality and Touch Gesture support.


• Silverlight for Windows Embedded Sample Application (XamlPerf): demonstrates a simple Silverlight for Windows Embedded application that displays an animation on the screen and provides some basic performance information.


• Third party applications: Adobe Flash Lite 3.0, MS Office (which have been part of Windows CE 5 but disappeared in Windows Embedded CE 6.0) and PDF viewers, Tencent Mobile QQ instant messenger.

I will be talking about these exciting new features in detail in the next posts; so stay tuned and watch out for my next posts!

Btw: there is a good German post here and you can find the official Press Release here a well as more information around Silverlight for Windows Embedded.

Other additional news from Kevin's Keynote at ESC today:

• In Q4 this year MSFT will be delivering Windows Embedded Server and Windows Embedded Enterprise
• Around that time a point version of Microsoft Auto will be released
• Windows Embedded Standard and the next version of Windows Embedded Compact (Chelan) to be delivered in Q2 2010
• A Management Solution to help manage devices to be offered in Q3 2010
• Embedded Spark 2010 to be kicked off this year - the theme is fun and games

Have fun!