We have developed applications for Symbol scanners in the past in VS2003, and updated the program to use VS2008. Our customer has (without consulting us) bought a variety of different mobile scanners - Intermec, Symbol, with Windows CE 4.2, 5.0 and 6.0. They would like us to make the application compatible with all the different vendors and all the Windows CE versions (and preferably making it compatible with Windows Mobile). After some initial research, and a gut feeling, I have concluded that this will not be a simple change to the code.

So, my questions are as follows:

1.) What versions of Windows CE are compatible with VS2008? If they are not compatible - what is the latest version of Visual Studio that they can be developed on. In that same vein - what versions of the Compact Framework are compatible with the various versions of Windows CE?

2.) Is the typical application difficult to make it compatible between different versions of Windows CE, assuming it is with the same vendor? Will it be close to being compatible with a different vendor's mobile device? (i.e. Windows CE 5.0 with Symbol being compatible (or close to it) with Windows CE 5.0 with Intermec).

Thank you for your help!

-Laura