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        Whitepaper explains Windows CE .NET interprocess communication

        Staff | Date: Mar 4, 2004 | Comments: 1



        Microsoft has published a detailed technical whitepaper on its MSDN website about Windows CE .NET interprocess communication, and how to use it to create a mailbox solution.




        From the abstract of the paper . . .
        Windows CE .NET provides a rich set of synchronization objects; however, interprocess communications (IPC) or interthread communications (referred to collectively as intertask communications) are provided only by point-to-point message queue. This is a user-defined queue that acts as a conduit for passing messages between a writer and a reader. An embedded operating system requires special attention to space and performance, so the Windows CE .NET point-to-point message queue may act as a pipe mechanism for interprocess communications. The majority of embedded real-time operating systems (RTOSs) have an array of intertask communications, such as mailboxes and pipes. Because a point-to-point message queue can be regarded as some sort of pipe, an implementation of a one-way IPC mechanism (a mailbox) is proposed.

        There is a proposal to create this mechanism as a service that is loaded and managed by Services Manager. This design strategy will offer lightweight interprocess and interthread communications that are wrapped in a very small package. It will conserve memory and and provide extremely fast performance.


        The complete whitepaper is available here:


        Windows CE .NET Interprocess Communication