Developing applications for Windows Embedded Compact 2013
Today I stumbled over the Application Builder for CE 2013 in Microsoft's download center. As of the description, with this pack I should be able to develop apps that target Windows Embedded Compact 2013 with Visual Studio 2012.
After downloading and installing the Application Builder I found the new framework assemblies in C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\WindowsEmbeddedCompact\v3.9, but there are no project templates targeting Embedded Compact 2013 in Visual Studio 2012.
I tried to create a blank WinForms or WPF project and to retarget it to 3.9, but that doesn't seem to be possible as well. There are no online templates that could be installed.
How do I create a CF 3.9 application using Visual Studio 2012?
Answer
All I can do here is sigh. Here's the state of things as of this writing (Mid May, 2013) and it could change in the coming weeks and/or months.
The Application Builder does not ship with device templates. Templates, instead, are shipped with the device SDK. Yes, this is different than in the past. It means that to do any device development, you'll need an SDK.
Windows Embedded Compact 2013 is currently not publicly available, so no one can currently ship an SDK. The net effect of this is that, for now, for the general public, the Application Builder install is completely useless.
Once WEC 2013 is public, I don't believe Microsoft will be shipping any "generic" SDKs. I very likely will. Once we have SDKs in the wild, you'll have templates and be able to build projects.