Windows 10 IoT Core OS Status and Issues

Whee Min

Hi UP Creators,

Is it possible to share the windows 10 Iot Core OS developmental status and issues? I think developers who are waiting patiently for the image will appreciate the updated progress of the Windows 10 Iot Core OS.
Is it possible to release the Windows 10 IoT Core Beta Image? If the issues are not needed for the developers' requirements or project, it maybe beneficial to release the beta version. The developers can judge and then feedback on this forum also.

Whee Min

[Deleted User]

For Windows IoT Core, I am afraid that we need to hold the support at this moment.
With help from Microsoft, we managed to boot UP board in Windows IoT Core, however, it can not do further more. After chasing Microsoft and Intel about Windows IoT Core, we were informed that Microsoft and Intel didn't have commercial arrangements to support Windows IoT Core on Cherry Trail, therefore, there is no BSP available.
It forces us to hold the support on Windows IoT Core. We've expressed the needs to have IoT Core, and keep pushing Microsoft and Intel.

If there are any experts from the community who can help us move further, please contact us. We can provide the required BIOS and related drivers.
We do appreciate your patience on this topic.

Diego Bonura

Hi to all,
i have seen on that pdf: http://www.up-board.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/UPDatasheetV7.pdf
That window iot is full supported....am i right? i don't see any documentation how to install it...
any news here?
Diego

[Deleted User]

We've removed Windows IoT Core from the support list for now.
http://www.up-board.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/UPDatasheetV8.4.pdf

Michael Oravecz

Very disappointed to hear that Windows 10 IoT Core will not be supported when the boards ship. I am prototyping using Raspberry Pi 2 and moving forward wanted an Intel processor equivalent. The UP Board looks like the answer I've been looking for. I'm not particularly excited by the Minnowboard MAX or its equivalents.

Any chance the Windows 10 IoT Core support could be available in a month or two?

Aling

The UP team is chasing Intel and Microsoft to support IoT Core on Cherry Trail platform. We need to get their attention to realize how much we are longing for it. Let's buzz around and get their support. Thanks!

Whee Min

The Windows IoT Core OS is an important platform advantage for UP Board. It's gives UP board the edge over your competitors as it consists of the latest cherry trail intel atom chip. It can also provide security features for professional features and boot or run from mmc. With Windows Iot Core on UP Board, it can provide a complete or total solutions for Internet of Things applications which is very hot today. Most of the early generation developers start using Visual Studio when we first start coding This is an important market that hopefully won't be forgotten by the UP team. If you can share or provide how the community can help to influence Microsoft and Intel on the implementation of Windows IoT Core OS, please feel free to let the community know. Some suggestions that I can think of are:
-Start a Public Survey both registered and/or unregistered whether to have Windows IoT Core OS in UP Board. Provide and influence Microsoft/Intel with this survey suvey result.
-If extra funding is needed to show Microsoft/Intel support for Windows IoT Core OS, set that buy option in your UP Board Shop. Maybe, need to provide the Windows IoT Core ProOS in this case whereby provides an ability to defer and control updates. This can differentiate professional developers who really need this requirement. You can also start another kickstarter or other crowdfunding websites on Windows 10 IoT Core Pro OS for UP Board which provides discounts for different version of UP Board discounts.
Your opinions and comments?

Diego Bonura

Great tanwm...you are completely right.
we really need Windows IoT support and to know how to move for having it.....
please UP Board Team..... let us know!
Diego

tanwm wrote:

The Windows IoT Core OS is an important platform advantage for UP Board. It's gives UP board the edge over your competitors as it consists of the latest cherry trail intel atom chip. It can also provide security features for professional features and boot or run from mmc. With Windows Iot Core on UP Board, it can provide a complete or total solutions for Internet of Things applications which is very hot today. Most of the early generation developers start using Visual Studio when we first start coding This is an important market that hopefully won't be forgotten by the UP team. If you can share or provide how the community can help to influence Microsoft and Intel on the implementation of Windows IoT Core OS, please feel free to let the community know. Some suggestions that I can think of are:
-Start a Public Survey both registered and/or unregistered whether to have Windows IoT Core OS in UP Board. Provide and influence Microsoft/Intel with this survey suvey result.
-If extra funding is needed to show Microsoft/Intel support for Windows IoT Core OS, set that buy option in your UP Board Shop. Maybe, need to provide the Windows IoT Core ProOS in this case whereby provides an ability to defer and control updates. This can differentiate professional developers who really need this requirement. You can also start another kickstarter or other crowdfunding websites on Windows 10 IoT Core Pro OS for UP Board which provides discounts for different version of UP Board discounts.
Your opinions and comments?

Aling

Hi Guys,
I think @tanwm proposed a good direction, we will discuss internally and post to the community how we will proceed it. Thanks!

Whee Min

Thanks for seriously considering Windows IoT Core for UP Board. I think your effort will be well worth it. Your's UP Board innovation and perseverance will capture the market first and reap the benefits.I think you have built up your credibility and visibility on the first kickstarter project which also includes all your UP Board exhibitions activities, I believe you had already built up a pool of customer-based contacts. It will be much easier for your second effort. Please let the community know how to help to make Windows IoT Core on UP Board happen.

Thanks!

Eric

Start by modifying the shop to get feedback on IoT Core specifically. The OS list now has only one entry for Windows and you'll never know how many of us want IoT Core.

Stefano Bettega

Hello,
we also would like to have some news about IoT on this board. Windows 10 works like a charm on the bigger board (4G/64G); what is the main difference between a full Windows 10 installation and a Windows IoT installation, which would make the latter impossible to work? Are Windows 10 drivers incompatible with IoT driver model?
Pleas help us to better understand this point.

Thanks in advance,
Stefano

Fabrizio

To be more specific, there is no agreement between Microsoft and Intel to support neither Cherry Trail or Braswell
Basically the last generation of Atom / Celeron cannot support Microsoft IoT Core.
We have escalated several time and we are still pushing it.
Honestly we didn't expect this ; we were informed that we could create our own Windows IoT Core distribution working with Microsoft partner but Microsoft has never released any tool to create a proper IoT Core image.

We will highlight again the needs of the community.

Eric

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you didn't investigate properly.

IoT Core uses the same tools as Windows Mobile, albeit with different packages. It'll cost you money to get them, but they are available and ready for use. Microsoft - as I understand it - will not stop you from doing yourself what they chose not to do for you.

Let me tell you from experience what Microsoft refers to as 'supported': if they say something is supported, you can call them and have them work with you to solve problems. For anything different, Microsoft will say it is 'not supported', which just means people will have to call YOU if there are (driver) problems with Windows IoT Core on UP board....... In other words, consumers and small makers won't start making UP board images *because* Microsoft doesn't support it, but if YOU support it meaning that consumers and small makers can call YOU to fix problems, there is nothing in your way to make IoT Core 'fully supported' yourself.

To give just one example, Linux wasn't 'supported' on Hyper-V for a long time (it is today I believe, if you choose a 'supported' distribution) Yet it worked just fine as long as you were spending the time to find out e.g. Linux needed some sort of kernel switch to even boot. The only thing that you couldn't do was call Microsoft support and expect them to actually help you if your Linux on Hyper-V had issues. They would sympathize, probably tell you to go to relevant places to read to fix problems yourself, but that call wouldn't be a potential 2 hours to troubleshoot - just 5 minutes to tell you sorry... A showstopper for some, completely irrelevant to many others.

My understanding is that the difference between UP and say MinnowBoard, Raspberry Pi and DragonBoard is that the latter three will have their BSP's updated by Microsoft, while you have to do that for UP even for parts of it that are packages offered by Microsoft and are part of Windows IoT Core.

So, you'll be able to make .ffu images that include the proper drivers for every release of IoT Core including pre-release/Windows Insider builds.

So let me show you the way by listing a few links:
[ul]
[li]IoT Core manufacturing[/li]
[li]Get the tools needed to customize Windows IoT Core[/li]
[li]Download the Windows ADK[/li]
[li]Download the WDK, WinDbg, and associated tools[/li]
[li]Windows 10 IoT Core, Version 1511 (Updated Feb 2016) (x86, ARM) - DVD (English) from MSDN Subscriber Downloads (this one will cost money to get, maybe at most $1200)[/li]
[li]ms-iot/iot-adk-addonkit on GitHub[/li]
[li]Windows 10 IoT Core Dashboard[/li]
[/ul]

With these tools, you can create packages, which you can include in images, which you can offer for download to owners and makers of UP board.

After a release, you must pack updates to drivers (mostly) and maybe just maybe other packages you provide into these packages.

And then you publish these updated packages to Microsoft so they can distribute them for you through Windows Update.

Fabrizio

Hi Eric

Unfortunately it's not so simple
We have talked with Microsoft IoT Core in HQ ; they contacted us during the kickstarter campaign because they love the idea to have a board like UP much powerful then Minnowboard and much more const effective but once they checked internally about Cherry Trail and Braswell and they told us they could not support.
We have then checked with Microsoft EMEA and Taiwan to ask for support to create the image but the answer was negative; they made a check and they said that there were some specific drivers that works with Windows Professional but must be modified for IoT Core.
We asked for Intel but again the answer was negative.
We got also a request from a company for 20.000 pcs UP with IoT Core, we asked to a big Microsoft system integrator in US and to Microsoft to support the project and the answer was again negative.

I can maybe ask to my colleagues to share more technical details if needed.

Anyway, if any maker can create an image of IoT core we are ready to reward him/her.

Thanks for supporting our community

Fabrizio

Eric

Do you have the tools and did you try to make an image? That'd be my step one - especially if you have let's say a BizSpark agreement so it's just free for you now - if you don't have that, get it! (Microsoft supports your startup as you grow), or if the absolute cheapest subscription will include that download I linked (MSDN Platforms, right?)...

So if I understand correctly, there are drivers that you didn't write or own, which must be rewritten from scratch (because there is no source code) in order to run on IoT Core?

How many drivers? 1? 10? 100? Which ones?

I am aware of the fact that both IoT Core and NanoServer have requirements for drivers that Windows Pro doesn't have (or at least you can work around that requirement which will become mandatory I believe for Windows Pro too at some point) - they must be installable without UI, through DISM or whatever process different from Windows Server that IoT Core supports to include them in base installation images fully automated, with just a .cat, a .inf and a .sys as an example.

If that is all there is to it, I could guess it would be limited to Intel HD Audio, but I can't imagine audio would be the showstopper - it could simply be excluded as a makeshift solution to get going. Is it - if my guess is correct - HDCP that is difficult or prohibitively expensive to get developing perhaps?

If those drivers don't require - I'm just winging it - membership of some consortium or another for who knows how many hundred thousands of dollars per year, most likely as long as it is a driver that has an equivalent in some Linux distro or another (open source), it could be rewritten (open source) maybe?

So yeah, get us some details and if it is at all possible maybe the community can at least help you into the right direction.

Victor Lai

We did test the MinnowBoard image available on Microsoft website.
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot/getstarted

Choose Minnow Board image and installed on UP is able to boot. But has below observation.
1. USB, HDMI, LAN is working on UP board
2. Display is using default driver
3. HDMI audio not working.
Not sure if this is workable for some application, but this is what is available at the moment. Intel/Microsoft is not offically supporting Windows 10 IoT Core on Cherry Trail.
Attached the Device Manager picture.

AAEON Victor

Eric

Good news that the default build works, albeit with reduced functionality.

Did you also test the Insider Preview builds? I found they lack some Ethernet drivers - not sure if UP is affected. Perhaps can you identify the driver file that UP uses?

That graphics is also missing is a bummer, but thinking about it, it was to be expected if it really is HDCP that is the problem here. On top of that, graphics is a massively difficult driver - it took Intel the good part of a year to get it right with DX12 on Windows 10 and I still experience the occasional IGD related STOP error... And there's just so much surface area: DX, OpenGL, OpenCL, video, ...

Intel did open source the kernel mode code for some IGD's, but for Linux (no DX) and that all together is only a part of a full featured driver.

So yeah unless you can find a driver that is compatible both with the x5-Z8350 and with the driver requirements for IoT and you can fix it to load for the relevant PnP ID's and then sign it and include it in a custom IoT build, there has to be written a massive amount of very complex code that is going to make UP unstable unless it is done really well...

Michael

Hi,
I would try to install the version of Windows Core Iot Minnowboard image.
I set and PCI Device Mode Mode in the BIOS, but I can not see up board as a USB-compatible device.


What do I do again? Other settings?
I tried via USB, but the windows tool (ICD & Windows Iot Core DashBoard) create the file system and not the USB stick to boot with the image.


Thank you so much for your time.
Regards,
Michael

Stefano Bettega

Hi,
how did you managed to install the download Minnowboard image to Up?

Victor Lai

To install WIndows 10 IoT Core need special 32bit BIOS. Let me check with the engineering to provide for trial. This was not in our original support list. But let me try to find the BIOS. Stay tuned.

Shiva

Hi,

I just got my UP board. How do I install Windows 10 IoT core on it ?

Aling

Please be aware that the UP board doesn't support Windows IoT Core. If you would like to try, you must have 32 bit BIOS. Check here & BIOS password
Warning: by changing settings in CRB BIOS menus, users risk bricking the board, and will not be able to claim the warranty in this case..

Shiva

Thanks for the quick reply.

Any possibilities of supporting it in near future ?

Aling

We would like to support, but we can not. It is up to Intel and Microsoft's commercial arrangement. You may read the subject threads for the story.

Daniel Bucherer

Dear Aaeon team,

first off, I've verified that if you actually go in and follow Eric's steps, you can very well create a nicely running image for IoT core if you work off the back of the MBM image. Using devcon thereafter also allows to install a good bunch of the drivers that are needed to make the device work.

What would need to be done from here is that someone would need to go and create CAB files for the drivers required inside the board. This has nothing really to do with any agreement between Microsoft and Intel, but rather something that the manufacturer of the UP Board would want to do.

In principle, the drivers only need to be working to the extent that they work on a standard Windows 10 x86 installation - the only difference of the IoT version is that IoT doesn't have a desktop UI.

If you guys were to provide us with signed driver CAB files, then we as makers could easily incorporate them into our custom ffu images. Kindly provide those, after this we can manage ourselves.

Thanks,
Daniel

Daniel Bucherer

In reply to the question "How do I actually get Windows 10 IoT onto the UP Board":

This is actually quite easy:
1. Change the UP board BIOS to x86
2. prepare a bootable USB stick for x86 Windows. Add the flash.ffu file for Windows 10 IoT onto that USB stick (anywhere)
3. When booting off the stick, chose "Repair" instead of installing the OS. Then, from the advanced repair tools, choose a command prompt
4. from within the command prompt, you can use the dism command ("dism /apply-image") to transfer the ffu onto the internal disk

Eric

For me the problem is that I don't have the .ffu and can't make it, without spending serious money that I am not willing to spend just to get the OS working.

You can make a .cat with the tools in the Windows SDK.

Here are all the links Signing Drivers during Development and Test.

I'm not sure this works on IoT core, but if its command prompt has bcdedit, you probably can enable TEST SIGNING mode so that signed driver will load. After that, before you deploy in the wild, you'd need the driver signed with a Microsoft provided WHQL certificate provided to you by Microsoft I believe, but check first whether this works and let us know.

Daniel Bucherer

Honestly, if you just want the MBM .ffu file, this is freely available without spending any money at all. Just if you want to build your own, you'd need at least an MSDN subscription (which I'd highly recommend regardless). Let me know if you need the official way to get the MBM ffu that will work quite well on the UP Board. As soon as you have that running, you can manually install most drivers through a remote powershell prompt.

Regarding the signed driver CAB files - it may be possible to build them without having a cert, but I was more thinking about a supported and supportable way of building a proper image for the UP Board, and this would clearly ask for manufacturer-signed CAB files.

Eric

I know.

But no, the first step is to have UP working with DirectX, OpenGL and UWP apps running performantly with drivers that - on top of that - have no issues, freezes, or STOP errors.

If you can demonstrate that, you have a reason to bang AAON on the head to get a properly signed driver and a supported .ffu downloadable from the site.

It'd be very interesting to see if and how this would fail or succeed.

Daniel Bucherer

And this, honestly, you should be able to achieve off the back of the MBM image with the drivers manually installed via devcon from a remote command prompt.

Haven't had enough time, really, to test my current installed system yet.