Windows CE, Microsoft’s stunted middle child, reaches end of support at 26 years

It was a proto-netbook, it was a palmtop, it was a PDA, it was Windows Phone 7 but not Windows Phone 8, and then it was an embedded ghost. It parents never seemed to know what to do with it after it grew up, beyond offer it up for anybody to shape in their own image. And then, earlier this month, with little notice, Windows CE was no more, at least as a supported operating system. Windows Embedded Compact 2013, better (but not popularly) known as Windows CE 8.0, reached end of support on October 10, 2023, as noted by The Register.

 

Windows CE, which had a name that didn't stand for anything and was often compacted to an embarrassing "wince," is not survived by anything, really. Remembrances have been offered by every Microsoft CEO since its inception and one former Ars writer. A public service for the operating system will be held in the comments.

The OS that fit in small spaces

Windows CE was initially Microsoft Pegasus, a team working to create a very low-power, MIPS or SuperH-based reference platform for manufacturers making the smallest computers with keyboards you could make back then. Devices like the NEC MobilePro 200, Casio (Cassiopeia) A-10, and HP 300LX started appearing in late 1996 and early 1997, with tiny keyboards, more-landscape-than-landscape displays, and, by modern standards, an impressive number of ports.

 

Windows CE 6, looking about as spacious as it was.

 

Pegasus arrived to most consumers as Windows CE 1.0, and, by all accounts, it had a lot of problems, at least if you were expecting it to be anything like Windows. The mobile OS couldn't work with Microsoft's Outlook, then a new addition to Office 97, until an update was shipped in March 1997, and it was still resistant to work with almost any other mail or personal information management (PIM) systems. Developers likewise didn't find the platform too appealing, as it requires none-too-cheap Microsoft's Visual Studio, Visual Basic, or Visual C++ tools, along with CE-specific module purchases.

 

By the time Ars Technica started mentioning Windows CE in 2003, it was well on its way to becoming Microsoft's "Sure, we have an OS for that" solution. It was the embedded "Windows CE for Smart Displays" OS for a ViewSonic airpanel V150p, which let you remotely control a desktop from something that you might, at an angle, call a tablet. It was modified with "Windows XP extensions" to power a $250 AMD "Personal Internet Communicator" meant for "emerging markets" in 2004.

 

By the time it hit 5.0 in 2005, Windows CE was now also Windows Automotive 5.0, part of Bill Gates' pledge to have "30 percent of cars" running Windows CE in them by July 2006. Gates did not hit this goal. Still, in mid-2005, Windows CE was installed in nearly half the PDAs sold, with most of its share having been clawed out of Palm's clutches. Later that year, Palm announced that its newest device, the Treo 650, was running Windows Mobile.

 

iPhones, Androids, and Microsoft's more beloved child

"Windows Mobile" is not "Windows CE," and if you noticed that, you were not alone. If you had a device smaller than a PC, there were now two things coming your way: Windows CE 6.0, and "its Windows Mobile variant." Meanwhile, Windows CE also became an OS layer in AccuVote, the OS on a "personal GPS," and also on an e-paper tablet (because companies have been trying this idea for a very, very long time now). If it was a mobile device and it was released in 2007, it seemed inevitable that Windows CE or Windows Mobile would be on it.

 

Unless it was made by Apple. After Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the iPhone had "no chance" of gaining significant market share, the iPhone gained significant market share in 2007. By late 2008, Google's new Android OS was shipping on T-Mobile's G1, and manufacturers were eager to jump in. Windows CE seemed to pivot even harder into its "Definitely Not a Phone" identity, getting a rebrand as Windows Embedded Compact sometime in 2009, and showing up on devices like CherryPal's $99 netbook aimed at the developing world. And on ATMs that got hacked on stage at the Black Hat conference.

 

By October 2010, Microsoft had a sliding market share in mobile devices, and a new old idea: a fully smartphone-focused OS called Windows Phone 7. It was a big departure from Windows Mobile, though it still had Windows CE kernel underlying its tech. Windows Phone 7 had strict rules around hardware specs, button arrangement, and branding. As we noted then, the phones had far more room to make their own thing with Android and Windows Mobile. "If Windows Phone 7 is anything short of an enormous success, it's easy to see them giving up on the platform."

 

Windows Phone 8 arrived in 2012, and it swapped Windows CE's kernel for that of Windows NT. That also meant that very few of the existing Windows mobile apps out there could upgrade to it and that many phone makers would skip the upgrade from 7 to 8 entirely. Microsoft put in nearly two years of development to transition away from the low-power-minded Windows CE, at a time when it didn't really have the time to spare.

 

A grim cameo, and it's still for sale

Beyond this point, Windows CE still existed, just on a level so low-key you wouldn't notice it unless you saw a weird little computer doing a very specific job. It showed up in one prominent place, however. In 2016, at the height of the US presidential election, it was revealed that a fantastically complex, $4,750 Windows CE phone was the only real option for the National Security Agency's preferred secure White House phone in 2009. Then-Secretary-of-State Hillary Clinton did not or could not use that, so she used her own BlackBerry and email server, and we have been hearing about it ever since.

 

Microsoft, in its "Windows CE Migration FAQ," writes a kind of half-hearted obituary for its OS. It "powered industrial, medical, and a variety of other devices for more than 20 years," allowing companies to "modify and create their own user interfaces and experiences." While support has reached its end, Microsoft will "allow license sales" for Windows Embedded Compact until 2028. "And, of course, Windows CE devices can continue to be used indefinitely," added a technical writer at Microsoft, perhaps wistfully.