Will Windows Embedded Compact 2013 run in real time with Microsoft Virtual PC?

Question

Is it possible to dual boot or use Microsoft Virtual PC to run Windows Embedded Compact 2013 on my current Windows 7 Intel PC?

How will the real time system execute in these scenarios?

Answer 1

A minor correction of terminology - "dual boot" means you select from a bootloader at boot time which OS to load, and only one OS runs at once. You are talking about virtualization.

What a "real time" operating means is that it guarantees it will answer interrupts in a given time frame.

I am unsure of how CE achieves this (if it does) on X86. X86 has at the very least system management interrupts, which are designed to occur without OS knowledge or ability to stop (the PC platform typically even allows a method to disable NMIs, but not SMIs). This allows the BIOS to control the fans and respond to thermal emergencies and such without OS dependency, and has been used by hardware manufactuers in the past to emulate hardware (search for "MediaGX"). So when X86 receives an IRQ, response may be delayed completely outside of the OS's knowledge or control, causing a real time operating system to miss deadlines for IRQ response.

Throw in a virtualization hypervisor (VirtualPC) running on top of an OS (Windows) and the situation becomes much, much, much worse.

So if you have an application dependent on the RTOS features of CE I don't think it will work under Virtual PC.