Enabling the Mouse to Activate Hyperlinks in the Web Browser (Windows Embedded Compact 7)

When you use a web browser on a device that is running Windows Embedded Compact 7, a left mouse button click may not have any effect inside the browser window. This problem occurs when you open a webpage with a web browser and click a hyperlink on the page. Instead of going to the associated webpage, the browser does not respond. In this situation, the only way to go to a website is to click the address bar, manually enter a URL, and press Enter.

This problem has not been observed on Virtual CEPC.

In this article:

Cause
Resolution

Cause

By default, the Windows Embedded Compact 7 browser is set up for touch devices.

Resolution

To address this issue, apply one of the following resolutions:

Set the BSP_NOTOUCH environment variable in the OS image
Map mouse events to touch gestures by using the registry

Set the BSP_NOTOUCH environment variable in the OS Image

You can set an environment variable for your OS image by using the Platform Builder integrated development environment (IDE), the command line, or a batch file. The following procedure describes how to accomplish this task by using a batch file. In this case, you edit the batch file for your BSP, which is located at %_WINCEROOT%\platform\<BSP>\<BSP>.bat, where <BSP> is the name of your BSP. For example, the batch file for the eBox BSP that is included with Windows Embedded Compact 7 is %_WINCEROOT%\platform\ebox3300\ebox3300.bat.

To set the BSP_NOTOUCH environment variable by using a batch file

In Windows Explorer, open the batch file for your BSP with a text editor.
In the batch file, on a new line, type BSP_NOTOUCH=1.
Save and close the batch file.
Rebuild the OS.

Map mouse events to touch gestures by using the registry

To map mouse events to touch gestures, you need to set the registry key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\GWE\UserInput] to PromoteMouseInputToTouchInput=dword:1. You can either follow the instructions below or watch this video to learn how to edit the registry in Windows Embedded Compact 7.

To map mouse events to touch gestures by using the registry

In Visual Studio, open your OS design.
In Solution Explorer, expand the OS design project node, and then expand the Parameter Files directory.
Under Parameter Files, double-click OSDesign.reg.
In the OSDesign.reg pane, right-click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, click New, and then click Key.
Type GWE and press Enter.
Right-click GWE, click New, and then click Key.
Type UserInput and press Enter.
Right-click UserInput, click New, and then click DWORD Value.
Type PromoteMouseInputToTouchInput and press Enter.
In the Properties pane for the PromoteMouseInputToTouchInput registry value, for Data, type 1.
Save and then build the OS design project.