Windows CE is officially dead

Lunduke

News • Science & Tech

(I know. Many of you thought it already was.)

Bryan Lunduke

October 24, 2023

Ready to have your mind blown?

Windows CE is no longer, as of October 10th of this year, a supported Operating System by Microsoft.

I hear what many of you are saying. "Microsoft still supported Windows CE? Didn't that die... like... a long, long time ago?"

Well. Sort of. The "Windows CE" that many of us are probably thinking of -- the era of Windows CE that powered PDA's, Palmtops, and the "Windows Mobile" Smartphones -- ended its extended support phase nearly a decade ago.

The HTC TyTN, powered by Windows CE 5.x, circa 2006

Just the same, semi-active development of Windows CE continued up until 2013 -- when Microsoft released Windows CE version 8.0 (rebranded as "Windows Embedded Compact 2013").

But that final CE version was, quite possibly, the most depressing release of any operating system in history. Version 8.0 stripped out substantial, critical features... nearly gutting Windows CE entirely.

A short sampling of what was removed in CE 8:

Support for most processor platforms (including MIPS, SuperH, ARMv5 and ARMv6) was dropped entirely.
Internet Explorer was dropped.
The ability to sync was removed.
Even the entire Windows Explorer shell was tossed into the recycle bin.

Seriously. Almost everything that, for an end user, made Windows CE... like Windows... was tossed aside. It was absolutely brutal.

To give you a visual of just how dramatic the change was. Here is a screenshot of the previous release, Windows CE 7.0, from 2011:

Note that Windows CE 7 looked like... well... Windows. Start Menu. Task bar. Internet Explorer and the Recycle Bin on the desktop. This was... Windows-y.

Now let's look at Windows CE 8, the final CE version from 2013:

That's not a loading screen. That's not some sort of empty recovery shell. That's the actual desktop. That's what Windows CE 8.0 looked like.

Empty. Just... nothing. A shell of its former self.

And, as of two weeks ago -- October 10th, 2023 -- even that empty, sad, final version of Windows CE has left "Extended Support".

Windows CE, in all forms, has officially been tossed in the dumpster.

Which begs the question:

"Hey, Microsoft! I heard you like Open Source. Since you no longer support or earn money from Windows CE... any chance we see a source code release (preferably version 7... version 8 makes me sad) up on GitHub any time soon?"

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