One irritating feature of the XDA II (aka i-mate Pocket PC Phone) was that it introduced us to a previously little known Windows CE limitation. The limitation was that a maximum of 32 processes could be running at any one time, and has been there since the first version of Windows CE. Unfortunately in the case of the Windows Mobile 2003 based XDA II, as many as 28 processes could be running from startup.

People hitting the 32 process limitation would see some unusual things occurring, such as applications left running in the background suddenly exiting, as well as unusual error messages and problems with applications which weren't really written with it in mind (including ActiveSync).

Up until now, the best solution has been to remove shortcuts from the Startup folder in order to reduce the number of running processes and allow more applications to run concurrently. All this looks now set to change.

Spb Software House, makers of fine software such as GPRS Monitor, have announced a free solution for developers who need background processes to run. The solution, which is an extension of Microsoft's new Pocket PC Services functionality introduced in Windows Mobile 2003, permits developers to write backwards-compatible applications that can run in the same way on Pocket PC 2000, 2002, and Windows Mobile 2003.

"Spb Software House is pleased to announce the release of a free solution for developers to the Windows Mobile 32 process limitation problem. The most common methodology used by Pocket PC developers for implementing background tasks is to create executable files which are stored in the Windows/Startup folder in order to ensure that the program is automatically started following a reset, and continues to run in the background. The problem comes in that the Windows CE operating system limits the number of processes running to 32. For example, in XDA II Pocket PC devices, 28 processes automatically start running immediately after a soft-reset, thus leaving you with only four possibilities for new processes, which limits the number of programs you can run. The Spb Software House solution counteracts this limitation, and developers can implement this solution free of charge within their applications."

I'm sure that everyone will join me in giving Spb a big pat on the back for making it possible for developers to write better applications that won't suffer from these problems!

Read the press release here, and the article here.

Thanks to Pocket PC Thoughts for the heads up!

(Image courtesy of Spb Software House)