As we all know biggest improvements on the new Windows Embedded Compact 2013 launch was the upgradation of its compiler tools with the ARMv7 support and also to keep the application development tools aligned with the Visual Studio releases.
Please find the below table will help in choosing the right tools for the WinCE development.
| Features | VS2008 | VS2012 | VS2013 |
| Platform builder | WinCE7 | WinCE2013 | WinCE2013vNext |
| Smart Win32 Device Application Development | Supported | Supported(Only WinCE2013) | Supported(Only WinCE2013) |
| .NETCF Application Development | V3.5 | V3.9(Only WinCE2013) | V3.9 (Only WinCE2013) |
| XAML Application development | Microsoft Expression Blend 3 | Blend for VS2012 | Blend for VS2013 |
After installing the SDK created using the Compact 2013 OSDesign only, the option for new project creation will appear in the VS2012 as shown in the below figure. Also we cannot create application for older WinCE version (i.e.WinCE7 and lower) using the new IDE i.e VS2012.
With this advantage, we can use the same IDE to develop the application for various platform like Windows Phone 8, Windows 8, and Windows Embedded Compact 2013 etc
Please refer my older blog post to know about the tools required for previous versions of WinCE.
https://www.e-consystems.com/blog/windowsce/relation-between-visual-studio-and-windows-ce-versions/
eSOM++ Team
I have a .NET V3.5 application that was building in VS 2008, I want to run that application in VS 2013 what should I do?
If you got the source code of the application,try to recompile it with the VS2013 IDE and use it in WEC2013.