VS 2005 and Smart Device installation problem

I have a weird problem with my VS 2005 and Smart Device SDK installation. I'm using the DVDs from the Windows Mobile 5.0 Developer Evaluation Kit given away at the recent MEDC. I want to successfully install the Pocket PC and Smartphone SDKs and compare the IDE etc with that of evC 4.0.

I appear to have successfully installed VS2005 however the Smart device SDKs do not appear to installed correctly at all even though I did install them. There seems to be numerous problems with the setup all of which seem to lead to an error associated with finding a user datastore. If for example I select 'Tools -> Connect to device' I see a message box with "Error retrieving information from user datastore' then another messagebox with "Package 'Smart device configuration package has failed to load properly...'

This is all very annoying. I've now tried 3 uninstalls/reinstalls with the same results. I've disabled the virus checker, removed vc6 all to no avail. Whilst evC is occasionally flaky at least it works!

Has anyone out there experienced my problem or have any ideas what I might need to do.

Thanks in advance for any help.

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VS 2005 and Smart Device installation problem

adrien62
Vladimir,

The ...\corecon directory was not present so that was not the problem. Regarding the ...\Device Emulator directory is this where the new device emulator is supposed to be installed

Simon.
Anton Lapounov - MSFT
Vladimir,

Thanks for your comments and advice. I have now nanaged to get VS2005 to work with PPC/SP 2003 and 2005 by removing Platform Builder from my workstation. It seems that they do conflict. I had to completely uninstall everything that came on the VS2005 DVD (except for the new .net framework), remove PB then install it all again. The Smart Device 'plugins' seem to work now apart from some emulator connectivity problems that other people are seeing, e.g., not being able to connect to the emulator using the SPY remote tool.

Thanks

Simon.
JohnFTZ
More information...

I can create a straight 'desktop' win32 application using the new project wizard. I did this and then tried to view the wizard created dialog in the resource editor I get the following message "Error retrieving information from user datastore. Platform services is not registered. Please repair Visual Studio."

So, same type of user datastore error that I get elsewhere but this suggests that Platform Manager has not installed correctly. Kinda makes sense.

I'm hoping that Neil Enns is reading this (hint).
Razgriz Ace
Vladimir,

Thanks I'll try that. However, I have had this problem from my very first install of VS2005.

Simon
grohlster
I was using a Beta version of Platform Builder, Macallan build but don't know the exact build number as I've now uninstalled it.
Pierre Drofwarc
Hi Simon,

If you have installed a previous version of VS2005 on a computer, you might still have configuration files that are now invalid. Close VS, delete the following directory:
\Documents and Settings\<localuser>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\CoreCon
and restart VS

You might also want to delete \Documents and Settings\<localuser>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Device Emulator

Thanks,

Vladimir
mirfandar
If this directory doesn't exist after running VS and going through a VSD scenario this could be sideeffect or root of the problem.

Basically there is a set of XML files which contain information about devices, emulators, SDKs, transports and so on. The master copy of this set of files exists at:

\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\CoreCon\1.0

The user copy is located at:

\Documents and Settings\<local user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\CoreCon\1.0

When VS needs to access these files it checks if the master copy has changed or the files do not exist in which case it regenerates them. Can you start VS and go to Tools\Options\Devices and see if you what error message you get Also check if the files still do not exist after that.

If that is the case then there is something wrong with the master copy which causes the regeneration to fail.

To answer your other question:

\Documents and Settings\<local user>\Application Data\Microsoft\DeviceEmulator is where the DeviceEmulator saved state files are stored. The emulator itself is installed under \Program Files\Microsoft Device Emulator.

Thanks,

Vladimir
zeltera
Sorry about the time this took Simon. You might want to install the DMA patch - it makes the connectivity work significantly better (but it doesn't fix Spy). Could you please provide a little more information about what version of PB you had installed and what was the order/history of installations I'd like to reproduce that behavior in house and make sure we fix it.

Thanks,

Vladimir
Seenivasan.Palaniappan
That explains it - there were some beta builds of PB that had issues with VS because of the shared corecon component. I'll try to add that information to the readme.

Thanks,

Vladimir
watoli

I have been reading this post over and over again to fix my current problem, and finally fixed it. I had the same issues after installing the Treo emulator sdk. I got all the same errors that Simon did, except I could not find the \Documents and Settings\<local user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\CoreCon\1.0 directory in windows. I finally opened a Cmd prompt window and located the folder that way an deleted all files in that folder and re opened MSVS 2005 and viola fixed. I had all the emulators back. My question is though why could I not see the folder in the windows explorer Is it supposed to be hidden Sorry for the stupid question but after chasing this for 12 hours I think I deserve one dumb question. :)

Thanks Jon Stroh
Kamardash
I forgot to say that I still have eVC 4.0 and PPC/SP 2003 SDKs still installed on the workstation although I believe I read that the tools should work in parallel with VS 2005. Additionally, I do have an installation of Platform Builder 5 (Macallan build) installed. I could find no information to say whether that conflicts with VS 2005 and I don't really want to remove that as I need it for other work.
yodlle
Also: if run the standalone executable Microsoft Device Emulator Preview - Device Emulator Manager I get the error message "Cannot find the datastore - error 0x8972150A".

Anyone got any ideas on this
Dugrhill
I have similar problem with successful installation of VS2005. I have also installed Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC SDK after that. When I try "New Project", select Project types as Visual C++/Smart Device, choose any Templates and give any project Name, it always returns to the same "New Project" dialog box. The status bar then shows "Creating project '<name>'... project creation failed". However, creating all other types of projects are okay. Trying uninstalling and reinstalling Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC SDK does not help. Trying repairing Visual Studio Beta 2 installation does not help. Trying deleting "CoreCon" directory also does not help. I do not have Platform Builder installed.

Does anyone know what could be the problem
JayR
Hi Vladimir,

If you have installed a previous version of VS2005 on a computer, you might still have configuration files that are now invalid. Close VS, delete the following directory:
\Documents and Settings\<localuser>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\CoreCon
and restart VS

This fix (remove invalid configuration files) also took care of my problem "The system cannot find file specified" whenever I tried to deploy an application, even if it was just an empty form. Now I realize that it was trying to deploy CF, but if the config files are in fact corrupt (a prior build uninstall does not bother removing them), then perhaps a better error message such as "System cannot find file "netcfv2.ppc.arm" (exact file name(s)) in expected path "c:\whatever". That would be just so much more conductive to helping us fix the configuration issues :-).

Anyway, thank you very much for posting this fix!

Leonid S. Knyshov
VS 2005 and Smart Device installation problem

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