PocketPC Installer Professional - What is it ?
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Creating a set of installer files is a four-step process.

Step 1. Choose a name to call it.

Step 2. Drag'n'drop the files that you want to install or copy into the PocketPC Installer Professional.

Step 3. For each file, tick the boxes to show which types of device (Windows Mobile / Smartphone / Windows CE .Net) you would like each file copied/installed onto.

A quick note about the order of your files.

Often, the order in which a set of .cab files is installed on a device is essential, and the PocketPC Installer Professional will help you to get this right first time.

If you were to drag'n'drop your Compact Framework, SQL, SQLCE and your .Net CF program .cab files into the program at the same time, and it'll order them for you. These four files must be installed on your device in this particular order, so it'll make sure they're added to the list in this order. Yup, sometimes a program can make your life easier without you even realising.

PocketPC Installer Professional won't let you install .cab files on a device if they are not compatible. Some Visual Studio 2005 .cabs will not run on anything other than WM2005/6 devices, and this is enforced. However, it's clever enough to know when a .cab file should be able to install correctly.

The most obvious example: the .cab files that Visual Studio 2003 produces have a maximum CE version number of v4.99 suggesting that they can't be run on Windows Mobile 2005 devices. This isn't true... they actually run fine on Windows Mobile 2005 devices. So when you drag one of these into PocketPC Installer Professional, it'll happily add it for WM2003, but give you the option to tick the box for WM2005. Have a look at the fourth file in the list above.

You can also specify any other files that you want to copy onto the device, such as the SQLCE database file customers.sdf shown above. As you'd expect, there are a range of Copy options, you can choose to just copy files if they are older on the device, if they don't exist, and so on.

Step 4. If you want to, you can choose a bitmap to display on the PDA whilst the files are installing/copying.

You can choose to add your own background image, license screen, pick a language, and so on.

Actually, you can now specify upto three background images files like this, of different sizes. So, you could have one bitmap for PDAs/Smartphones running in Landscape mode, another one in Portrait mode, and a square one for Smartphones.

When your installer runs on a device, it'll check the current screen resolution, and use the bitmap that's most suitably sized.

Step 5. Build the installer files. PocketPC Installer Professional will now build your two .exe files (one for your device, one for your PC), offer you the chance to deploy it to your device, and tell you a few details about how much compression was applied.

And that's it ! You've just built your first installer files !