Getting started with Windows 10 iot Core

Hi, everyone.

Tomorrow we will be celebrating Raspberry Pi’s 6th birthday. This event will be the first Raspberry pi celebration in my country. So I decided to format the Raspbian O.S which I had on my raspberry pi to try something new for this occasion. The thing new I tried was Windows 10 IOT core.

I decided to install this Operating system on my pi to experience something new and to start IOT development using UWP. I’ll be sincere with you guys, my first impression after seeing the OS and going through it was, “It looks cool but I’ve limited functionalities as compared to Raspbian”. This is true for the moment since we have only early versions of the O.S, but in the near future I think It will be mind blowing. The O.S on its self runs a service in the background which can be accessed remotely through a web browser this service will give you crucial information about your device in real time, you can manipulate your Raspberry Pi device from your PC’s browser and do a lot more… I know this is nothing new, but there is a first time for everything right ?…

 What we will be doing.

Getting started with Windows 10 iot Core

[zc4wp_za2]

Install Windows 10 IoT Core.

installing windows 10 IoT is easy, you first need to have an SD card of at least 8 GB, obviously you will beed a raspberry pi and download Windows 10 IoT core dashboard your can get it from this link. Now we will install the OS in our memory card.

Online installation.

You can install the O.S directly from the internet. Follow these steps to do so.

  • Insert your SD card into your PC, or through any card reader connected to your PC.
  • Open the Windows 10 IOT core dashboard we just downloaded and select set up a new device option.
  • Select your device (In our case the possible device choices are only Raspberry pi 2 or 3.
  • Select the SD card you plugged in to your PC.
  • Give your device a name and don’t forget the password you will need it later.
  • Click on the Download and Install button. and wait till it is done.

Offline installation.

You may want to install the operating system from an image which you can download from here. This is a little bit tricky so, follow my steps well.

  • Download the O.S from the link above.
  • Mount the iso file to your disk.
  • Open the iso file you mounted, double click on the .msi file installation.
  • After installation, open your Windows 10 IOT core dashboard and select the set up a new device option.
  • On the Device type drop down, select Custom.
  • Browse to the location of the ffu file added after the installation we did above. the path should be “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft IoT\FFU\RaspberryPi2”
  • Select your SD card, name your device and add a password.

Now, insert your SD card into your raspberry pi, plug it to a power supply, plug your mouse and keyboard on it, and don’t forget the HDMI on a screen. The first boot is a little bit long.

Now that your device is running, connect your self to the internet using the same network as that of your PC. Your device should be recognized automatically by the IOT Dashboard.

a look at Windows 10 IoT core

a look at Windows 10 IoT core

 

[zc4wp_za2]

Let’s Have a glance at the Windows 10 iot Core Dashboard and the remote portal to your raspberry pi device.

The IOT Dashboard lists your devices, and gives you basic information about the devices like IPV4 address, OS version e.t.c. from the dashboard, you can open the remote portal (By selecting Open in Device Portal option where your device is liste) in which after authenticating, you can access a wide range of funconialities (Like file transfer, accessing command line, CPU performance e.tc) from your devices, you can even have more information about your device than you would have had from the User interface presented to the user by the OS its self.

IOT portal for remote devices

IOT portal for remote devices settings

IOT portal for remote devices

IOT portal for remote device performance

Let’s Create and run a basic C# and XAML UWP app on your Raspberry pi.

Windows 10 IOT runs UWP apps, as its name states “Universal Windows Apps”. We will build a very basic starter app. These apps can have a user interface in XAML.

  • Create a new UWP project on visual studio.
  • Add a hello world text box and a button.
  • When the button clicks a message box will show up to wekcime users.
  • You can do so through remote debuging with your raspberry pi device.
  • Select ARM processor for deployment, and select remote device, input the IPV4 of the Raspberry pi and start the application.
  • After selecting this, you can run your app and it will run smoothly on the PI3.

[zc4wp_za2]

sample running

sample running

sample running

sample running

That is the end of this small tutorial, I think this is absolutly easy and going further from here will be easy.

If you liked this post, or it was useful to you, please ? like it, share it on twitter, facebook or other social media… in case you want to get updated on any new useful post, follow me on twitter  and like my page on facebook.

Follow me on social media and stay updated

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.