8 replies to this topic

[Nighthawk]

Hi all,

 

I have a plain vanilla original Netduino. I used to program my netduino using an old WinXP machine with NETMF 4.1 and VS2010. It has never had the firmware updated.

 

Well, time has come to use the Netduino for something else. Thing is now I have a Win8 Pro 64-bit machine with VS2012 Ultimate. I still don't have NETMF or Netduino SDK installed.

 

While we're at it I would like to upgrade the firmware too.

 

So what's the best way to go about it? Should I use NETMF 4.2 to flash the firmware to v4.2 and use Netduino SDK 4.2?

Or could I use NETMF 4.3 straight away?

I've read the guide about upgrading to 4.2 but not sure if Win8 and NETMF 4.3 will do the job correctly too.

 

Thanks and Best Regards,

Dennis

[Mario Vernari]

I have a Win8 Pro x64 upgraded from a Win7 x64. On the old system I had installed only VS2010 Express and MF 4.1.

After the OS upgrade I found VS2010 Express already present and also I installed VS2012 Express, thus now I have both.

I plugged my old N+ and the driver was installed automatically from internet, then I done the same with my N+2.

Finally I installed the tools for the MF 4.2.

Everything seems working fine, however I use VS2010 Express for both the MF releases.

Hope it helps.

Cheers

[Nevyn]

If you install NETMF 4.3 you can use VS2012 - I did that over the weekend and I still had access to the old 4.1 and 4.2 version of NETMF but now from VS2012.

 

I'm using Win 7 Ultimate x64 and VS2012 Ultimate with the Netduino Plus 2 and NETMF 4.2.

 

One thing I have found is that VS2012 is a little sluggish to deploy and debug compared to VS2010.

 

Regards,

Mark

[Mario Vernari]

Just forget...it could be useful for many users.

 

Win 8 hibernates the pc when there's no activity: that's fine. I guess something similar there was on Win 7 as well, but I don't remember details about it.

I noticed that when you resume the pc, you will have hard time deploying to the Netduino (both old and new) if the board is kept connected (and powered). You have just to unplug and plug the USB of the Netduino again, then the system will work normally.

 

Maybe worth noting that VS2012 has an issue (mostly when in the XAML designer) when is running in a pc which has configured some "touch enabled device" (any kind of). I and other users experienced hangs and similar strangenesses.

It is something related to the .Net framework, because there are even 3rd party UI-libraries involved in that.

Cheers

Edited by Mario Vernari, 01 January 2013 - 01:01 PM.

[Nighthawk]

Thanks guys. Guess that clears most of the development questions.

 

Regarding updating the firmware. This is a new PC (old one lost an encounter with coffee  ) and my Netduino only has firmware version 4.1. I would like to update this to the latest stable firmware 4.2.

 

I only have VS2012 installed so I can only install NETMF 4.3 (which I have done successfully). Attempting to install NETMF 4.2 gives an error that VS2010 is required.

 

Can I flash the firmware 4.2 on to my Netduino using MFDeploy from NETMF 4.3? The instructions here (http://forums.netdui...-v420-update-1/) specify NETMF 4.2 and Netduino SDK 4.2.

 

I could install VS2010 if really necessary but I was trying to avoid it.

[baxter]

Just a quick question ... Is there any advantage to using Win 8 as a development platform for Netduino if you have Win 7 available? The only reason I can think of is VS 2012.

Baxter

[Chris Walker]

Hi Baxter,

 

Just a quick question ... Is there any advantage to using Win 8 as a development platform for Netduino if you have Win 7 available? The only reason I can think of is VS 2012.

 

I believe that VS 2012 works on both Windows 7 and Windows 8.

 

We upgraded all of our development machines to Windows 8, but we're working on some non-Netduino projects which require Windows 8.

 

Chris

[Nevyn]

Baxter,

 

 

Just a quick question ... Is there any advantage to using Win 8 as a development platform for Netduino if you have Win 7 available? The only reason I can think of is VS 2012.

 

The only advantage I can think of is if you want to develop Windows 8 native applications.  VS2012 runs fine on Windows 7 - I'm running it here with no problems.  If you are developing Netduino applications then at the moment I can't see any advantage.

 

Regards,

Mark

[Mario Vernari]

Both Chris and Mark are right.

Win 8 is an hybrid product: half is a cloth over Win 7 and half is a new bunch of API (dramatically different from the set used for years). The problem is that the new APIs are going to supersede the old one...

At the moment, you need Win 8 if you want to develop Store Apps (i.e. old "Metro") either for desktop or tablet. I believe you need Win 8 also for developing for Windows Phone 8, while WP7 was fine on Win 7.

Cheers