Starting CE devices

The procedure is as follows:

After switching on the CE device, the CE Loader/BIOS looks for the data carrier with the NK.BIN file. The NK.BIN file contains the complete CE operating system and TwinCAT.

If the NK.BIN file is available, it is loaded into the RAM and executed. If one of these steps fails, the device signals this, for example, by means of a message on the display or a flashing LED, etc.

During the bootup, the NK.BIN file is loaded from the data carrier and executed. To do this, the CE device searches for the folder Documents and Settings on the data carrier. This folder contains the registry with all settings. If this folder contains a registry corresponding to the version of the started NK.BIN file, all settings are read from this registry.

The registry may deviate from the NK.BIN file if the file was created with CE 4.2 and cannot be handled with an NK.BIN file CE5. It is possible that older registries are not supported by different image versions of the same CE level.

In any case, if the registry version does not correspond to the version of the NK.BIN file, or if the folder Documents and Settings cannot be found, the CE system creates a new standard registry and saves it back to the folder Documents and Settings of the data carrier.

Following these two steps the standard registry is available, so that we may assume that we have a CE device with a standard registry.

Under HKLM\Init, the registry contains information about applications.

The registry may look like this:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\init]
"Launch20"="device.exe"
"Launch30"="gwes.exe"
"Depend30"=hex:14,00
"Launch60"="services.exe"
"Depend60"=hex:14,00
"Launch50"="explorer.exe"
"Depend50"=hex:14,00,1e,00
"Launch90"="CeRDisp.exe"
"Depend90"=hex:14,00,1e,00,32,00,50,00
"Launch80"="TcSysSrvW32.exe"
"Depend80"=hex:14,00,1e,00,32,00
"Launch96"="\\hard
disk\\system\\Startup.exe"
"Depend96"=hex:14,00,1e,00,32,00,50,00,5a,00 

CE OS must be running in order to start device.exe, gwes.exe, service.exe. The other applications are optional.

• explorer.exe starts the default shell (see Using an alternative shell)
• CeRdisp.exe starts the CE RemoteDisplay Server (accessible from the host PC via CeRHost.exe)
• TcSysSrvW32.exe starts TwinCAT
• \hard disk\system\Startup.exe starts various tools (if available), e.g.
• \hard disk\system\CxRunOnce.cmd (runs only once after creation of the first registry)
• \hard disk\system\autoexec.cmd (each time the CE device is started)
• \hard disk2\system\autoexec.cmd (each time the CE device is started; disk 2 could be an external memory stick that is available during bootup)
• \hard disk\system\CeRdpAutoClient.exe (start application similar to RDP client. Connection must be pre-configured)
• various Scada packages from other manufacturers

Options executed once only during commissioning

During the first bootup – immediately after building the standard registry – the Startup application executes some items once only (not every time the system is booted)

a. Option: Import registry settings (if available)

During the first bootup - immediately after building the standard registry - Startup also imports all the registry files from the folder hard disk\RegFiles.
After importing the registry and saving it on the data carrier, the device reboots automatically.
Using this function you can copy specific device settings by simply copying the folder RegFiles to the data carrier.

This contains information on how settings for FTP, RAS, regional settings, taskbar, timebase, device name, screen resolution and wallpaper can be changed.

Note: The samples are for CX100x devices with CE. The registry settings may differ from those for other devices, e.g. CX1020, CX9000 or Ethernet panels. Under \RegFiles\Samples there are corresponding samples for the setting options. All entries under \RegFiles are integrated at the first start of the system.

b. Option: Execute the batch file CxRunOnce (if available)

During the first bootup – immediately after building the first registry – Startup calls \hard disk\System\CxRunOnce.cmd (if available), where customer-specific changes can be made..

For a connection to RAS or to protect access to FTP or SMB (public folder), NTLM Users is required amongst other things in order to be able to issue rights verifications for users.

Rights verifications can be issued with the command line tool CxAddUser in the folder \hard disk\system; the batch entries should be made in CxRunOnce.cmd.

See detailed information on Adding users.

Options executed during every bootup

a. Option: Execute AutoExec.cmd (if available)

At each bootup, Startup also calls hard disk\System\autoexec.cmd (if available). Enter customer-specific settings/calls here.

b. Option: Execute CeRdpAutoClient.exe (if available)

At each bootup, Startup also calls \hard disk\System\CeRdpAutoClient.exe (if available). RDP client enables the connection and display of RDP servers (default: one CE system displays one XP/SPE machine)