Device IDE MRU List

[RacingDog]

I don't know which it was, but I had two bad entries in my MRU list, these caused me to be unable to use the good entries! Whichever entry I selected I got that ueless .NET message about not having the error messages CAB installed (which some web sites suggest is still not enough to get proper messages (any knowledge here?)).

I found the ini file where the MRU list is kept and manually deleted both duff entries and lo, everything was fine. I should have deleted them separately to get more info, but I was in a hurry. Sorry.

One entry was duff because I had moved the source to a new folder.
The other entry was a reference to a file on my laptop, I had been using my wireless connection and the old dodge of refering to the laptop's hard drive as "\\MyLaptop\c$\", and the connection was off when the problem occured.

So one of those was the culprit. But why were the valid entries not working? It was as though something was checking all the entries when only the selected entry needed to be referenced.

I suppose it could have been the error state not going away having unluckily first selected a duff entry!?

[agraham]

Originally Posted by RacingDog

some web sites suggest is still not enough to get proper messages

That is not true in my experience. I have a WM6.0 and a WM6.1 device which both came without error messages installed and the CAB added them fine. Many other people on here the forum have commented on the missing resource message and when pointed to the item in the FAQ to install the CAB I have never seen anyone come back and complain that it didn't work.

[Erel]

We will check it. Please post any additional information if it happens again.

[RacingDog]

Thanks all.

And who but Microsoft would be so incompetent as to completely leave out the error messages? I mean, if you really want them as optional, then why not have that set-able during the installation process. Having a completely separate installation that you might not be aware of (depending on where you downloaded from) is just dumb. Or if you really need to worry about download speed you could name the basic installation as Lite or something so that people know to look for extras, regardless of where they download from.

[agraham]

Actually it is the decision of the device manufacturer, not Microsoft, as to whether to include the Compact Framework error messages or not. Many omit them to save space in the device ROM.

[RacingDog]

Eh? Apart from old versions, I've always had to download the more recent versions.

It's still pretty stupid whoever decides it. These devices have huge memories (they only look small compared to modern big PCs), and who doesn't immediately expand that with a storage card which can only be filled by manic downloading?

Remember Basic interpreters in 8 or 16k computers? And these things have multi gigabyte expansion cards? Need to save memory? That CAB is not huge by today's standards.

Yeah I know, just the view of a grumpy old git who has little time for using huge memories on facilities I never need only to find the basics are missing.

[Erel]

I agree with you about the missing error messages. It can be quite annoying.
.Net CF 1.0 did include all the error messages.

I guess that there is a localization problem here. Microsoft didn't want to include all the different packages and therefore decided not to include anything by default.

[agraham]

I don't want to correct the master but my understanding is that Microsoft licences each device for a single copy of Windows Mobile with a single language only, or perhaps two for some countries that have two primary languages like Canada. I think that that it is then up to the device maufacturer to complete the regionalisation and hence decide what resources to include. I believe this is why there is no option to change languages on devices. You have to buy another device licensed for the language you want as you original device is only licensed for the languages it was purchased with.

[Erel]

I don't want to correct the master but my understanding is that Microsoft licences each device for a single copy of Windows Mobile with a single language only

You've rightfully corrected me many times in the past, and I'm always happy to learn something new...