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When I read this thread on the Silverlight forum, I wanted to test the possibility to run Rich Internet Applications built using Silverlight 3 on an embedded device powered by the last version of Windows Embedded, Windows Embedded Standard 2009 (WES).

To rapidly deploy the image, I decided to use Windows Virtual PC Beta and the .VHD file support available on Windows 7.

These are the steps:

1 – Install Windows 7 RC on the test PC

2 – Install Windows Virtual PC and Virtual Windows XP

3 - Install Windows Embedded Standard 2009 Studio (the trial is available here)

4 – Run the utility “tap.exe” in a command prompt of Virtual Windows XP in order to obtain a list of the devices

5 - Generate a WES 2009 image in the directory “c:\WES2009Img” using the WES utility “Target designer” by importing the file obtained in the preceding step. It’s important to enable the “Silverlight 1.0” component in order to install the files required for the Silverlight installation

6 – Create a new Virtual Machine to host the generated image

7 – Mount, format and make active the .vhd by using the “Disk Management” utility of Windows 7

8 – Copy the files and folders of the Windows Embedded image (contained in “c:\WES2009Img”) in the .vhd by assigning a drive letter to the virtual disk file

9 – Boot the Virtual Machine from Windows Virtual PC

10 – Install the Silverlight 3 plug-in and enjoy Rich Internet Applications on your Windows Embedded Standard virtual machine