Honeywell THOR VM1, Reference Manual, Page: 69 / 324

Thor VM1 Utilities
The following files are pre-loaded.
LAUNCH.EXE
Launch works in coordination with registry settings to allow drivers or applications to be loaded automatically into DRAM at
system startup. Registry settings control what gets launched; see the App Note for information on these settings. For
examples, you can look at the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ LXE \ Persist
Launch will execute .CAB files, .BAT files, or .EXE files.
App Note
All applications to be installed into persistent memory must be in the form of Windows CE CAB files. These CAB
files exist as separate files from the main installation image, and are copied to the CE device using ActiveSync,
or using a CompactFlash ATA card. The CAB files are copied from ATA or using ActiveSync Explore into the
folder System, which is the persistent storage virtual drive. Then, information is added to the registry, if desired,
to make the CAB file auto-launch at startup.
The registry information needed is under the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ LXE \ Persist, as follows. The main
subkey is any text, and is a description of the file. Then four mandatory values are added:
FileName is the name of the CAB file, with the path (usually \System).
Installed is a DWORD value of 0, which changes to 1 once auto-launch installs the file.
FileCheck is the name of a file to look for to determine if the CAB file is installed. This will be the name of one of
the files (with path) installed by the CAB file. Since the CAB file installs into DRAM, when memory is lost this file
is lost, and the CAB file must be reinstalled.
Order is used to force a sequence of events. Order=0 is first, and Order=99 is last. Order must be greater than
4 for the Thor VM1. Two items which have the same order will be installed in the same pass, but not in a
predictable sequence.
There are two optional fields that may be added:
1. Delay is used to add a delay after the item is loaded, before the next is loaded. The delay is given in seconds, and
defaults to 0 if not specified. If the install fails (or the file to be installed is not found), the delay does not occur.
2. PCMCIA is used to indicate that the file (usually a CAB file) being loaded is a radio driver, and the PCMCIA slots should
be started after this file is loaded. By default, the PCMCIA slots are off on powerup, to prevent the “Unidentified
PCMCIA Slot” dialog from appearing. Once the drivers are loaded, the slot can be turned on. The value in the PCMCIA
field is a DWORD, representing the number of seconds to wait after installing the CAB file, but before activating the slot
(a latency to allow the thread loading the driver to finish installation). The default value of 0 means the slot is not
powered on. The default values for the default radio drivers (listed below) is 1, meaning one second elapses between the
CAB file loading and the slot powering up.
The auto-launch process proceeds as follows:
l
The launch utility opens the registry database and reads the list of CAB files to auto-launch.
l
First it looks for FileName to see if the CAB file is present. If not, the registry entry is ignored. If it is present, and the
Installed flag is not set, auto-launch makes a copy of the CAB file (since it gets deleted by installation), and runs the
Microsoft utility WCELOAD to install it.
3-7