The Moth

Continuing from part A (if you haven't read it, we'll wait for you...go on then :-)

5. Take over the device
Popular desire amongst devs is to take over the device. Their app is so important that nothing else should be accessible. This is not as bad as it may sound, as in some cases the application really is the raison d'etre of the device. Every solution described seems to create more issues, so there doesn't seem to be a clean one-rule-fits-all. If you have this requirement, here are some links for you to pursue [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] (in other words search for "full screen" and "kiosk")

6. File System
The storage system on PPCs is similar to the desktop, with only a couple of differences. There is no C:\ drive; everything starts at the root, so an example path is this: "\Program Files\Some Folder\MyApp.exe". More importantly, there is no concept of current directory, the implication of which is that you must always use absolute paths (like the example above). To get the directory of your NETCF app, see this. Note that the OpenFileDialog will only let you browse the "My documents" directory, so if you need to go to other places you have to create your own.

7. Memory Constraint
An obvious difference with PPC devices is the limited memory that is available. When the device runs into low memory situations, it will start closing open windows (this is not minimising, it is real closing). If you get in such a scenario, some people advise to try hooking into the WM_HIBERNATE/WM_CLOSE windows msg; I advise you to revisit your architecture and not consume so much memory in the first place. Measure and set the expected memory your app requires to run smoothly, and if it doesn't get that on a device, it simply means the environment does not meet your criteria. You should, of course, be cleaning up resources in the Form.Closing events in any case. For more on memory problems see Memory Problems FAQ

8. Deployment
Deployment is quite different on devices than to the PC and all links you need on this topic are already provided here

9. Question: "How do I take advantage of my existing desktop .NET code?"
Answer: Share the code

If you are using the NETCF for targetting a device other than PPC (like me), you cannot make any of the above statements without knowing the specifics of the device (all custom CE-based devices are different). In this MSDN article, you can see some of the differences between PPC projects and WinCE projects in VS.NET 2003. I may do an entry on the topic too, at some point in the future.