Is it possible to run Flash projector files (EXEs) on Windows CE?

March 21, 2007 12:47 PM

Is it possible to run Flash projector files (EXEs) on Windows CE?

I assume it's possible to run Flash files using the Windows CE Active X plugins that are available as part of the Flash SDK, but that's not a viable option for me. Instead, I would prefer to just take an EXE created with Flash, and run it on a Windows CE device.

Has anybody tried this? Any other ideas forrunning a full-screen Flash file on a Windows CE device?

posted by ciocarlia to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

An EXE file is a native executable, which means it isn't portable from one kind of processor to another. An SWF file is in pcode which is interpreted by a previously installed execution package, which is why SWF files are portable from one kind of processor to another.

The EXE files that Flash produces consist of the pcode plus the native executable code for the interpreter, so that they can be run without having the Flash interpreter installed on the machine. But EXE is a Windows format; it means that the code is x86 and it's designed to run on the Windows OS.

WinCE is similar (but not identical) to Windows as an OS, but most of the WinCE devices out there run on processors like ARM, and those aren't binary compatible with x86. WinCE also runs on x86; the question would be what processor the specific WinCE device was based on. And then you'd have to ask whether the Flash EXE file tries to use Windows calls which are not present in WinCE, and whether the EXE file format is actually portable between them.

That's why I suspect you'd be better off trying to figure out how to get the native Flash interpreter to install on your WinCE device and run SWF files on it.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 2:15 PM on March 21, 2007

Abridged version of SCDB: Try it and see. If it doesn't work, try the Flash interpreter.
posted by Aloysius Bear at 3:40 PM on March 21, 2007