Essentials of Windows Mobile Kiosk Mode

Sometimes enterprises have a requirement to only allow a specific application to run on a Pocket PC or Windows Mobile device. By design, Windows Mobile based devices are feature rich, consisting of different types of applications such as games, music players, web browsers, system utilities etc. A user working in an enterprise scenario can be very easily distracted by these fun-to-use applications. If a user starts using these applications during working hours, then a lot of productivity time of the organization is lost. Also an inexperienced user can easily corrupt the device by unintentionally changing the device settings. If a device goes bad due to this reason, administrators have hard time figuring out what caused the problem and then they have to try several recovery steps to bring back the device to normal working condition.

Above problems can be avoided by running the enterprise application on Pocket PC device in kiosk mode. In kiosk mode, a user is restricted so that he/she can only work on a specific application. Users (intentionally or unintentionally) will have no ways to access other parts of the device such as Start Menu or Today screen. The chances of system corruption decreases if the application runs in kiosk mode.

Features of a good kiosk system based on Pocket PC device

Ok. You have configured your Pocket PC device as a kiosk device. You can call it a good kiosk system if

• When the device is in use, the user is restricted to a single application only.
• The kiosk application runs full screen and takes advantage of larger screen real estate.
• At any time the administrator can take control of the device (normal mode) by passing a authentication mechanism such as password based, finger printing etc.
• The application always starts automatically in full screen kiosk mode when the device boots up.
• Pressing hard buttons on the device doesn't launch fun-to-use pocketpc applications.
• Optionally, installation of unauthorized applications should not be allowed.

Configuring Pocket PC device to run in Kiosk mode

There are two ways to run your Pocket PC application in kiosk mode.

One method is to change the design of the application and implement the functionality for running the application in fullscreen kiosk mode. If you have more than one application that you want to run in kiosk mode at same or different times, then more work will be required to implement kiosk support in each one of them.

Second method which is an easier and reliable method, is to use a tool like PocketKiosk Builder. With this tool, you don't need to change your application; infact no programming is required. Using a desktop tool, you generate a package that contains information about which application you want to run in kiosk mode. Once this package is installed on a PocketPC or Windows Mobile device, your application starts running automatically in kiosk mode. An engine is installed on the device which makes sure that taskbar with start menu is hidden and the area covered by them is allocated to your application. This provides more screen real estate to your application, hence you can display more information to user. Some options are available to exit the kiosk mode. One of them is to; soft reset the device and provide an optional administrator code during boot up. This way device will enter normal mode. This is useful for administrators so that they can take full control of the device. The admin code should be set so that users cannot access the device in normal mode.

It has been debated whether general purpose Pocket PC devices are suitable for use in enterprise scenarios. We support it because even a small company or organisation can afford to buy off-the-shelf low cost Pocket PC devices and deploy applications on them. Also usage of these devices can be changed as different requirements come in future.

For more information about PocketKiosk Builder, click here.

Last updated on: Nov 05, 2007
First posted on: April 30th, 2006