Introduction

Have you ever wanted to create setup packages, bundle multiple cab files or compress the files in your deployment package or have the option to distribute through a desktop or OTA(over the air) for your Windows Mobile Applications? If yes, then Mobile Packager will help you achieve that easily.

Background

Mobile Packager is a simple tool that you can use to package files and applications to create a single Windows Mobile installer for Windows Mobile devices. Using Mobile Packager you can compress and package your image files, application components (*.DLL), other executables (*.EXE), CAB files or other type of files into one packaged installer executable file. You can also customize your device based installer to have background images and progress bar to provide a professional looking installer.

Using Mobile Packager

The Start Page

The start page is the first page that will be displayed when you open Mobile Packager. This page will welcome you to Mobile Packager allowing you to either create a new project or open an existing project or even select from the list of projects that you have recently opened. This page also tells you the License version and notifies you if you are running the latest version of Mobile Packager.

Figure 1. Mobile Packager Start Page

The Actions and Files Page

This is the page where you add files that you want to be packaged. You can also specify additional actions and conditions for the files. For example for a cab file, you can specify if you want to install the cab and on which platform version you want the cab to be installed. Note that you can also include .NET Compact framework and SQL CE cab files to be packaged. Mobile Packager will compress these files when generating the installer setup file making it easier to download and distribute large files and multiple CAB files.

Figure 2 The Files and Actions Page

The Customize Page

On this page you can further customize your installer package by selecting options to show full screen, or to wait for the user to tap before starting installation, to show an End User License Agreement (EULA) or even soft reset the device once after completing the installation.

On this page, you can also add registry entries that you want to create on the device, Add a background image and arrange the position of the background image and progress status placement on the installation window that will be displayed to the user.

Additionally, you can also specify the shortcuts that you want to create for your applications.

Figure 3 The Customize Page

The Build Page

At any time, you can use the "Build" button that is located on the top menu bar (green arrow pointing downwards) or any of the "Build" buttons located on the other pages, to build your setup installer file.

Upon building your project, the build page will show you the success status of the build and by how aggressively it was able to compress the files. After building the project, two installer files will be created. This installer files will be displayed in the output section on the build page. The desktop installer can be used to install the application from a Windows desktop to a device connected to the Windows desktop via ActiveSync. The mobile installer can be used to install your files and applications to a device via OTA (Over The Air) or by downloading the mobile installer using other connectivity that is available on the mobile device you are targeting for distribution.

This page also provides you with the functionality to browse to the generated files, or deploy the mobile installer to a device that is currently connected to your machine or to an emulator that is currently running on your desktop. It also allows you to launch the desktop installer with a click of a button. 

Figure 4 The Build Page

Outputs

Voila!! Now you are done and you have your installers ready. But you probably want to see what these installers will look like when they are run from the device or from the desktop. The following images show screen captures for installation from within the device and installation from the desktop.

Figure 5 Installation Window on a Windows Mobile Device.

Figure 6 Installation from a Windows Desktop.

How to contact us

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