Connect WM5 emulator to the network

Leon Meijer — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:37:33 GMT

Windows Mobile is not so easy with setting up a network connections. Recently I tried to use the Windows Mobile 5 emulator that ships with Visual Studio 2005. A .NET Compact Framework application on this device has to connect to a ASP.NET web service that runs on my desktop machine. For this, I needed a TCP/IP network connection between the emulated device and my host machine. This is possible, but requires some special steps.

This are the steps I performed to setup the connection:

Download and Install Virtual PC 2007. This installs a network component which is necessary for the emulator to access the network;
Start the Pocket PC emulator with Windows Mobile;

Click File, Configure...;
Switch to the Network tab;
Check the Enable NE2000 PCMCIA network adapter and bind to checkbox and select your network adapter from the list;
Click OK;

Note: If you didn't install Virtual PC 2007 you might receive an error message.

In Windows Mobile, Tap Start, Settings;
Switch to the Connections tab;
Tap the Network cards;
Below 'My network card connects to', select The Internet;
Tap ok;
In the Settings window, tap Connections;
Switch to the Advanced tab;
Tap the Select Networks button;
Select two times My Work Network;

Tap ok;
Soft-reset the device by clicking File, Reset, Soft

After the emulated device is booted, it should get an IP-address from your network's DHCP-server.

Hope this helps,