Coding on the xv6700
As it turns out, my phone was not developer locked as I had assumed from some of the sites I found. It was mostly a matter of getting VS.NET 2k5 to install its code on the phone. Not that that went without problems, and I gather I still need to figure out how rapiconfig enters into this.
I created a demo on VS.NET 2k5, deployed it to the phone and it failed without any useful error. However the program was over there, so I ran it manually. Problem with my version of .NET Compact Framework, i.e. i only had 1.1 and needed 2.0 for what Visual Studio built. I searched for a while how to target 1.1 from VS.NET 2k5 and found references claiming that I could choose at project creation. However I found no such option when I tried a new project. I think have a release candidate of 2k5 on my home machine, so maybe it's supposed to be there and just not in my version. I will check on that tomorrow with my work machine, which has the official release on it.
So i fired up VS.NET 2k3. This one wouldn't connect to my phone. Played around with the settings for a while, but no go. So I hand deployed the build and voila, first test running on the phone.
Good. But I don't want to target 1.1 or use VS.NET 2k3, if i can avoid it. Can I upgrade my phone? I downloaded the .NET CF 2.o redistributable. It didn't want to install. It complained about another version being on my machine.. Grrr.. I don't care what my machine has, I want it on my phone! But I uninstalled the CF 2.0 I had, then re-installed the new one and it promptly upgraded my phone.
After the phone reboot, the phone no longer came up on my machine when i plugged it in. But that was just an artifact of the install, a rebbot fixed that. In the meantime, I fired up the binary I had previously built for 2.0 and now it worked as well. We've got a platform to play with!