Microsoft announced six brief white papers about its Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 for point-of-service systems. The papers discuss the operating system’s development tools, creating a prototype application, best practices for automatic updates, POS for .NET, using SQL, and legacy OPOS (OLE for POS) support, says Microsoft.

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Newly offered on Microsoft’s MSDN website, the white papers cover the company’s Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 operating system. Formally announced in January, POSReady 2009 is designed as a successor for Windows Embedded for Point of Service (WEPOS). Compared to the older POS stack, it offers technologies such as Microsoft Silverlight, the .NET Framework 3.5 with Windows Presentation Foundation, Internet Explorer 7, Windows Media Player 11, Microsoft SQL Server Express, and viewers for Microsoft Office documents.

According to Microsoft, POSReady 2009 also includes the POS for .NET common control library, allowing for “seamless plug and play with retail peripherals.” The product also offers “embedded-specific features” taken from the Windows Embedded Standard (WES) operating system.

The white papers are written by Gordon H. Smith, a Windows Embedded MVP who works for Avnet, according to Microsoft. Collectively, they provide an interesting overview of the new POSReady 2009 operating system.

For example, the “POSReady Development Environment Overview” [DOCX-formatted link, here] introduces developers to the tools that are available for working with the operating system. According to Smith, the integrated development environment (IDE) is Microsoft Visual Studio, which includes the editors, compilers, debugger, and so on. The language-independent programming framework is the Microsoft .NET Framework, and retail-specific functionality that fits within that framework is known as Microsoft Point of Service (POS) for .NET, he adds.

“Creating a Proof-of-Concept POS Application” [DOCX-formatted link, here], provides a real life example for early-stage product development. Replete with sample code, the white paper discusses various steps that should be completed when creating a simple prototype of a kiosk check-in application for a fictitious airline, according to Microsoft.

“Maintaining Windows Embedded POSReady with Windows Update” [DOCX-formatted link, here] explains that POSReady 2009 is capable of connecting to Microsoft severs and downloading updates automatically, unlike Windows Embedded Standard 2009. This is possible because, while both operating systems are derived from Windows XP Professional binaries, POSReady 2009 uses only a known subset of these binaries, Smith writes. But, he adds, retailers who do not want to receive updates directly from Microsoft can still use other methods to update images in the field, such as an in-house WSUS (Windows Sever Update Services) server for example.

The “POS for .NET Overview” white paper [DOCX-formatted link, here] gives an overview of POS for .NET, which, according to the author, provides a straightforward and consistent interface and classes, allowing .NET applications to interact with POS peripheral devices. The paper includes a diagram (above) illustrating how POS for .NET uses service objects to provide programmatic access to POS applications, Microsoft says.

In another sample-filled paper, “Legacy OPOS Support” [DOCX-formatted link, here], Smith explains that prior to the introduction of POS for .NET, retail-oriented devices were implemented as OPOS (OLE for Point of Sale) controls. The paper reviews the kiosk check-in prototype featured in “Creating a Proof-of-Concept POS Application,” above, but shows how it could work with legacy OPOS drivers when they’re available from a hardware vendor, according to Microsoft.

Finally, “Using Linq to SQL in POS for .NET Applications” [DOCX-formatted link, here] is also said to build upon the results from the proof-of-concept paper already mentioned above. The paper shows how to use Microsoft’s SQL Server 2008 Express to look up data from a SQL Server database for the “FictitiousAir” prototype application, says Microsoft.