So I'm getting a few emails about how to get the Ickle Web-Server running on the Windows Mobile emulator but being able to be connected from a desktop browser.

Here are the steps I followed to make this dream a reality.   The first thing I found you need is the Microsoft Loopback network adapter installed on your machine.

I found some instructions that explain how to do this -

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Install-Microsoft-Loopback-adapter-Windows-XP.html

Vista is pretty much (slight poetic license) the same procedure.

In my case I set the IP address of the loopback adapter to 10.100.0.1 with a subnet mask of 255.0.0.0

Make sure, you don't pick an address that is even close to any network that you use.

Next its time to configure the Emulator to use the loopback adapter.   Fire up say the Windows Mobile 6, professional emulator and select from the emulator properties.   As follows -

Ok, almost there...   

Next you have to configure the emulator to also have a fixed ip address.   I opted for 10.100.0.2.   This is done inside the emulator on the network settings as follows -

And the network address at -

Ok, at this stage click OK (top right) .  I then did a soft reset on the emulator.   On your desktop PC you should now be able to ping 10.100.0.0.2.

Now I confess the above step didn't go that smoothly.  It took a few reboots to get this all sorted,.    I also found out that on one machine, I needed to get the required networking components namely 'Virtual Machine Network Services'.   See below.

I resolved this by downloading Virtual PC 2007,  which did the trick fine.   VPC can be downloaded at - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=04d26402-3199-48a3-afa2-2dc0b40a73b6&DisplayLang=en

Ok, back to our pinging Windows Mobile device.    Next step is to run up the Ickle web-server.      If you haven't downloaded it yet get it here

In Visual Studio, when you run the Ickle web-server you'll see on the output window what address its listening on -

So lastly,   lets try and connect to the Ickle web-server on your desktop browser.   Long pause and some more frustration later, a few reboots and (some how).    You'll get -

So there you have it.   Its seems that the above is a little bit of a fight to get going, but if you need it, it is possible.