Windows CE - XP Embedded Reliability

[arthurliz]

We are the technical arm of a stock exchange member firm that trades equity securites daily as part of its business in market making.

We, unfortunately have to run many MS windows based programs on any number of the 40 some odd Intel platform devices at our trading posts.

For example we use a well known quote and news service that only runs on Micrsoft 2000 or XP

We are fed up with the patches, the auto reloades, the auto reconfigurations and the typical windows platform hassles. Note we use 100% Name brand industrial computing equipment for reliability.

Would the typcial windows hassels that befall nearly every one on this planet with a OEM version (example what comes with a Dell or HP or IBM) or a Retail version of Windows dissappear if we went out and bought WIndws Ce or XP Embedded and created a stipped down and locked version of Windows on which to run our mission critcal software?

IN other words can we make an ultra reliable WIndows OS that will not screw up a trader in the middle of a 100,000 share trade becasue his WIndwos XP quoting platform decided that it wants to call mommy for an update, even though we repeatedily have turned that darn feature off numerious times.

 

[Nelviticus]

It sounds like you need a real-time OS like QNX. "Real-time" means that the OS guarantees that every thread gets handled within a certain time (see the definition at foldoc).

If you changed OS - either to WinCE or to something like QNX - you'd have to change the software you run as well. Windows CE doesn't run Windows desktop software, just software compiled specifically for WinCE. There is a version of the .Net framework that runs on WinCE but a) it's cut down from the full version and b) that's irrelevant if the software you want to migrate isn't .Net.

That's a partial answer to your question, I hope.

Regards

Nelviticus