Windows CE
- For other emulators that run on Windows CE devices, see Emulators on WinCE.
Windows CE is an OS developed by Microsoft and first released in 1996, CE was the main competitor of Palm OS during early days of portable computers and mobile devices. both could be found on devices like PDAs, early smart phones or really any device that needed a low power OS that was easy to use.
In the 1990s it was mostly marketed as a small replacement of laptops, called Handheld PCs, and included a desktop GUI that looked similar to Windows 9x/NT. These also had various incompatible CPU architectures such as ARM, MIPS, or SH. Additional programs had to include different executables for each architecture.
In the 2000s, Microsoft created a new GUI and marketed PDAs with Pocket PC and later as Windows Mobile and standardized on ARM only. Windows CE was used as the underlying OS. Embedded devices that ran CE usually came with their on GUIs, with a barebones windows desktop hidden away.
Windows Mobile was effectively discontinued when Windows Phone 7 was released, which broke all compatibility with older programs. Windows CE for embedded devices was discontinued after the release of Windows Embedded Compact 2013.
Windows CE emulators[edit]
ARM architecture[edit]
| Name | Platform(s) | Emulated CPU | Latest version | Accuracy | License | Active | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft ARM WinCE 6 Emulator+Random apps | 
|
ARM | 6.0 | ? | Proprietary | ✗ | ✓ |
| Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003SE SDK with emulator |
|
ARM | 2003 | ? | Proprietary | ✗ | ✓ |
| Microsoft Windows Mobile 5 SDK with emulator |
|
ARM | 5.0 | ? | Proprietary | ✗ | ✓ |
| Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 emulator |
|
ARM | 6.1 | ? | Proprietary | ✗ | ✓ |
| Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer toolkit |
|
ARM | 6.5 | ? | Proprietary | ✗ | ✓ |
| MAME (HP Jornada 720 target, WinCE 3.0) |   
|
ARM | git artifacts[N 1] 0.272 libretro core |
? | GPLv2 BSD-3-Clause |
✗ | ✗ |
x86 architecture[edit]
| Name | Platform(s) | Emulated CPU | Latest version | Accuracy | License | Active | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft x86 WinCE 5 Emulator |
|
x86 | ? | ? | Proprietary | ✗ | ~ |
| Windows CE Platform SDK (H/PC) 2.0 02/98 | Windows NT | x86 | ? | ? | Proprietary | ✗ | ✗ |
