This is the answer from Esri Support. Margaret J.: The ArcPad development team is aware of the retirement of Sql Server Compact Edition 2005, and it will likely not have any effect on ArcPad. When ArcPad is installed, it installs SQL CE 2005 software anyway which is all that ArcPad needs to run. This could change for future releases, however for the current version of ArcPad (10.2.2), the retirement of SQL CE 2005 will have no effect on ArcPad.
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