Visual Basic program not running on iPAQ, need help

[Rhinocerosaurus]

I'm terribly frustrated with my program.

I've written it in Visual Basic using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, and it looks fine. It compiles fine. It works fine. Using these instructions, I've made a CAB file usable on mobile devices (the "test subjects" are a pair of HP iPAQs, although I've tried it also on my friend's Windows Mobile-friendly device), and after upgrading to .NET Framework 2.0, it installs fine.

But it won't run.

What I mean is, I click on the icon in the Start menu, and it gives me the little sonar scope "I'm working on it" animation. Forever. Left alone, it will do nothing until it runs out of batteries. If clicked, the illusion that it's actually going to run is dispelled, and the animation abruptly ends. I tried running it while the "current applications" window was up, and it doesn't appear there. It just plays the little sonar animation, and as I already said, I'm terribly frustrated with it.

Is there something I'm missing? Is there a component or event or form that doesn't work on mobile devices? Is there something missing from .NET Framework 2.0 that doesn't like Visual Studio 2005? It's maddening, and by all rights this should have worked by now, but doesn't.

Getting the nitpicking out of the way:
Yes, there's enough memory to run it.
Yes, there's enough space to install it.
Yes, it installs correctly, without any (visible) errors.

I'm sorry if this seems terse, but deadlines and unresponsive hardware are not friends of mine. Can anyone help?

Thank you.

[Rhinocerosaurus]

Well, I can no longer say it does nothing when left alone. Giving it a quick test run on my iPAQ for old time's sake, I come across this error message after ~5 minutes of letting it sit:

File or assembly name 'System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089', or one of its dependencies, was not found.

Anyone care to shed some light on this?

[Strider]

is this an application you have developed or have you received a CAB file and are trying to install it?

[szlamany]

Did you develop this using an emulator?

Have you tried running it to the device from the IDE? If you do that you can debug it properly.

I've had some truly nasty deployment issues with Ipaq's - but currently have my PPC app running on about 40 of these devices quite nicely.

[Rhinocerosaurus]

is this an application you have developed or have you received a CAB file and are trying to install it?

I developed it myself, then turned it into a CAB file using the direction at the link above.

Did you develop this using an emulator?

I had assumed that Visual Studio 2005's "Debug" mode was using an emulator of some kind; if I'm wrong, how can I do this?

Have you tried running it to the device from the IDE? If you do that you can debug it properly.

I sure durn wish I knew how to do that. =) Maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew, here...

[petevick]

Hi,
connect the device, change your output in VS2005 to the device, and hit run - it will deploy and run on the device.

You sure you are not using any desktop dll's in this app?

[szlamany]

When you created the project you must have told it that it was a mobile project (I don't have the IDE in front of me right now - so how that is worded might be a bit different).

At any rate - on the left side of one of the top-line tool bars is a drop down list that allows the IDE to run the app against either the device itself or an emulator. Do you see that drop down??

[Rhinocerosaurus]

Thanks, all.

Whew... This is going to take a lot of retooling, but at least it'll work!

[Shaggy Hiker]

Another reason I prefer to ALWAYS debug on hardware rather than the emulators.