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To ⓒreatea run-time image that you can deploy to your target device, use the following process:

1. Identify the hardware on your target device.
Either ⓢelecthardware components manually in Target Designer or use the Target Analyzer tool to examine your system and ⓒreatea definition of the hardware that can be imported into either Component Designer or into Target Designer to begin your configuration.

2. Choose the features and functionality required in your run-time image.
Unlike system setup where you are given a small number of choices about which features to include, embedded platforms offer a vast array of features. For example, in Windows XP Embedded you can choose low-level system features such as a FAT or NTFS file system as well as applications such as Windows Media™ Player or Internet Explorer.

Using Target Designer, you can also customize the behavior of components through their component settings. For example, if you include the Internet Explorer component, you can ⓢetthe home page and title bar for the browser.

3. Identify the embedded system-specific features that need to be included in your target device.
In most cases, the parent platform of an embedded OS was originally intended to run on standard personal computers. Embedded devices often have very different requirements from personal computers. For example, some embedded devices have no display, or no writable hard drive. Each platform provides features, known as embedded enabling features, to address many of these differences.

Embedded enabling features are generally delivered as components. You can add them to your run-time image using Target Designer. For more information, see Embedded Enabling Features.

4. Build your run-time image.
Target Designer builds the run-time image by re-assembling an OS from its individual component parts. The run-time image includes resources associated with the components you selected, including registry settings, files copied from the repositories, and others. The image is placed in a target path that you specify and then must be transferred to your target device before booting.

The build process consists of the following two steps:

a. Checking and resolving dependencies. Before building the run-time image, you need to run a dependency check in Target Designer. This takes only a few minutes and ensures that all appropriate components are included and settings are defined.

b. Assembling files and resources. Target Designer creates the directory structure, copies the files into the appropriate run-time image directories, and creates the registry hives.

5. Deploy your run-time image.