Windows CE webcam driver released as Shared Source

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Mar. 01, 2006

A group of developers, including some from within Microsoft, has collaboratively created a Windows CE 5.0 USB Webcam driver and released it under a Microsoft Shared Source license. This is the first shared source community project involving Microsoft's Mobile and Embedded Devices group, according to Microsoft.

The driver supports cameras conforming to the USB Video Standard, according to the project's workspace at GotDotNet. The driver reportedly has been tested against the Logitech QuickCam Pro 5000 (pictured above). The camera supports both still images and choppy videos (approx. 10 fps).

"This was among the most frequently requested drivers during last year's Windows Embedded Student Challenge," said Windows Embedded product manager Mike Hall in a post on his blog.

The USB webcam Windows CE 5.0 driver, written in C++, is available in both source and binary form for download under the Microsoft Limited Permissive License from its GotDotCom project workspace, here. The project workspace also includes a 16-page whitepaper that describes the architecture in detail and explains how applications can get video and still images from the driver.

The Shared Source license under which the driver and its source code are released allows developers to create and ship modified versions, according to Microsoft. The driver will also be available for download in binary form on MSDN.

According to Microsoft, Doug Boling, author of Programming Windows CE, spearheaded the effort, and will be working with the GotDotNet community to provide updates for other camera types.

In the driver's whitepaper at GotDotNet, Boling explained the reasoning behind the project:

"The most often requested driver for Windows CE is a USB Webcam driver. It's not hard to understand why. First, everyone loves video. It's cool to plug in a camera and have it capture motion and still images whether you're looking at them locally or transmitting them over the net. Second, there are already such a huge number of drivers out for Windows CE, so to be honest, there [aren't] that many large classes of drivers left to write. Finally, while there has been a driver of a FireWire camera available for Windows CE for a while, a lot more systems support USB than FireWire. Given all these reasons, it seemed time to write a USB webcam driver."

The shared source webcam driver can be found here.

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