.NET compact framework - detecting if under emulator?

Question

Is there a way to detect whether we are running on emulator or real device from .NET CF code?

Thanks Dominik

Answer 1

This article tells you how, indirectly. It shows how to create a utility method IsEmulator that does the trick. You may also be interested in the follow-up if you're concerned with platform detection in general.

From the article:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using Microsoft.Win32;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Text;

namespace PlatformDetection
{
    internal partial class PInvoke
    {
        [DllImport("Coredll.dll", EntryPoint = "SystemParametersInfoW", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
        static extern int SystemParametersInfo4Strings(uint uiAction, uint uiParam, StringBuilder pvParam, uint fWinIni);

        public enum SystemParametersInfoActions : uint
        {
            SPI_GETPLATFORMTYPE = 257, // this is used elsewhere for Smartphone/PocketPC detection
            SPI_GETOEMINFO = 258,
        }

        public static string GetOemInfo()
        {
            StringBuilder oemInfo = new StringBuilder(50);
            if (SystemParametersInfo4Strings((uint)SystemParametersInfoActions.SPI_GETOEMINFO,
                (uint)oemInfo.Capacity, oemInfo, 0) == 0)
                throw new Exception("Error getting OEM info.");
            return oemInfo.ToString();
        }

    }
    internal partial class PlatformDetection
    {
        private const string MicrosoftEmulatorOemValue = "Microsoft DeviceEmulator";
        public static bool IsEmulator()
        {
            return PInvoke.GetOemInfo() == MicrosoftEmulatorOemValue;
        }
    }
    class EmulatorProgram
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            MessageBox.Show("Emulator: " + (PlatformDetection.IsEmulator() ? "Yes" : "No"));
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

If you're using the OpenNETCF Smart Device Framework, you can test the OpenNETCF.WindowsCE.DeviceManagement.OemInfo property to see if it equals "Microsoft DeviceEmulator". That's how I detect that I'm running under the emulator and should not interact with specific hardware like a barcode reader.