ArcPad Blog

ArcPad is retired as of January 1, 2022.  As a retired product, there will be no new development, patches/bug fixes, or live technical support.  Also, new and existing users will no longer be able to purchase ArcPad licenses, renew ArcPad maintenance, or receive technical support for this product.

ArcPad 10.2.6 is available to download from My Esri.

The key areas of improvement in ArcPad 10.2.6 are the behavior of subtype defaults, the ability to filter NMEA sentences and the ability to run the ArcPad Data Manager tools in debug mode. (details below)

NOTE: The retirement date for ArcPad 10.2.6 has been extended to December 31st 2021.
ArcPad will continue to be supported through December 31, 2021, at which time the product will be retired and support will end.
See the ArcPad Product Life Cycle document for more information.

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a protocol that provides privacy and data integrity between two communicating applications. Esri is planning to require TLS 1.2 connections for ArcGIS Online services in February 2019. Keep an eye on this Technical Support information page for updates on this.

At that time, ArcPad running on platforms that support TLS 1.2, will continue to work with no limitations or change in behavior.

ArcPad running on platforms that do not support TLS 1.2, will experience the following limitations:

•  feature services can not be synced with ArcGIS Online
• ArcPad packages can not be downloaded or uploaded to ArcGIS Online (including the download of ArcPad templates)
     

All other features will continue to work as normal.

Windows Desktop does support TLS 1.2.

Windows Mobile/CE 6.5 and earlier do not support TLS 1.2. Windows CE 7.0 can be updated to support TLS 1.2, by the manufacturer.

This change has the same consequences on ArcPad users as that experienced in December 2015 due to the SHA2 update.

ArcPad 10.2.5 is available to download from My Esri.

This release includes improvements to installation, geodatabase subtypes, defaults and definition queries.

Installation

When installing as an administrator, registry keys are now created in the local machine registry location. Licensing ArcPad as an administrator will enable all users of the machine to run ArcPad. The application path is now correctly defined in the registry for 64bit machines.

The ArcPad installation now includes a sample batch install script. Install ArcPad once to get the script for additional installs. It is recommended that you manually uninstall any previous versions of ArcPad before using this script. The script does detect installations of ArcPad but with the fixes to registry keys in 10.2.5, some registry keys of older version may get left behind.

To use the script:

1. Install ArcPad 10.2.5 on one computer
2. From the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcGIS\ArcPad10.2\Extras copy the files InstallArcPad.bat and UninstallArcPad.vbs to a shared folder location, for example \\share\ArcPad, or to a SD card or thumb drive.
3. Copy the ArcPad installation executable to the same location as the script file
4. Launch an administrator command (or powershell) window at this location and type:

   ./installArcPad.bat licensenumber

Where ./ indicates the current folder location (where the script is located) and licensenumber is your own ArcPad license.

Assuming all associated software is installed on the computer already – ArcMap, Windows Mobile Device Manager, Python - the installation (and un-installation if required) will proceed until complete with no user interaction. If these are not on the computer you will be prompted to acknowledge their absence.

ArcPad Data Manager

Definition Queries

When checking out data that has definition queries defined - two options are available: check out all data to the AXF and apply the definition query to the AXF layer for, or check out only the features included in the definition query. For more information on when to choose which option see Get Data for ArcPad.

Subtypes and defaults

At 10.2.5 all expected data is now checked out when layers contains subtypes, and specific attention has been paid to the case when not all subtypes contain domains.

ArcPad

Complementary to the improvements to check out, definition queries are applied as expected in ArcPad.  
Forms are now correctly created for related tables when the features class contains subtypes, and the subtype fields are displayed as expected. Coded value domains are honored if layers have subtypes.

Errors have also been reduced during feature synchronization. Common errors that should appear less (or not at all) are 'objectIds is null or not an object' and 'layer.length is null or not an object'.

And last but not least the Lambert Conformal Conic projection error has been resolved.

Up until we installed the recent Windows 10 Creator update, ArcPad has been running great on Windows 10. But with the update came two strange twists. Windows Mobile Device Center stopped working and dates in forms look strange. Both of these were unexpected and the second one still not explainable, but I'll describe them here. If you come across any other strangeness please comment on this blog. If you are using Windows 10 in a production environment with ArcPad, and you don't specifically need something from the Creators update, it might be better to hold off.

Windows Mobile Device Center

After installing the update, I could no longer launch Windows Mobile Device Center. This one, the internet had an answer for:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/after-windows-10-creators-update...

Changing the service setting fixed the issue.

Squashed dates

OK this is a weird one and we don't have a definitive explanation yet!

The good news is that it doesn't effect the date that is saved to your data. If you enable the Attributes table on your form, you can see that the date that you selected in the date picker is correctly stored. It is only the appearance on the form that is effected.

And on two different different machines we have observed two different appearances. See the screenshots below, on one the date is squashed so much you can not see any numbers, on the other you can partially see the numbers.

Please let us know if you also experience this date issue, or any other unexpected behavior after updating your Windows 10.

ArcPad 10.2.4 is available to download from My Esri.

ArcPad 10.2.4 includes a critical fix (BUG-000095878) for users who are synchronizing data with ArcGIS server. Also included with 10.2.4 is support for NTv2 datum transformations.

Note: Access to secured web services using SHA-1 certificates is no longer supported, this means some older mobile devices may no longer have access to secured feature services and ArcPad Packages hosted in ArcGIS Online. (More about SHA-1/SHA-2 certificates here)

For more information about ArcPad 10.2.4 see the ArcPad Help section in the ArcPad Help documentation.

ArcGIS Online security update (SHA-2) and how it affects ArcPad users

Background:
Security certificates and tokens are the standard way that websites control and maintain a private and secure connection between user and the server.  A user typically enters a username and password and the server sends back a token-signing certificate. These certificates have different levels of encryption security such as support for SHA-1 or SHA-2 encryption.  The encryption for logging into ArcGIS Online has been upgraded to SHA-2 (beginning Dec 2 2015). The move to SHA-2 is an industry wide action to improve internet security. The following article describes Microsoft's position. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2986556.  The support for SHA-2 encryption is at the operating system level, and for Windows it is available on Windows (XP, 7, 8.1, 10) and Windows Embedded HandHeld 6.5 devices that have been patched by the manufacture. Devices with mobile operating systems older than Windows Embedded HandHeld 6.5 cannot be patched.

What does this mean for ArcPad users?

This means that ArcPad running on many mobile devices (Windows Mobile/Windows CE) will not be able to login to ArcGIS Online after Dec 2^nd 2015 unless:

• The mobile device is running Windows Embedded HandHeld 6.5 devices that has a SHA-2 patch provided by the manufacturer. (see more information below)

     or

• The ArcPad user is running ArcPad 10.2.3, scheduled to be released on Dec 15^th 2015. Note: Even with ArcPad 10.2.3 devices that only support SHA-1 certificates will only be supported by ArcGIS Online until November 2016.

The use of Esri basemaps is not affected by this security update. The security update only pertains to ArcPad users who are signing into ArcGIS Online to retrieve ArcPad Packages or edit feature services.

What mobile devices running Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5 have a patch available for SHA-2?

Esri has made contact with many hardware manufacturers who already provide or are working on SHA-2 patches for Windows Embedded HandHeld 6.5 models.  The list below is for the devices we currently know about. If you have questions about the availability of the SHA-2 patch for your Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5 device we encourage you to contact the manufacturer.

Trimble:

            Trimble Geo7x – The 6.7.17 OS upgrade (supports SHA-2) – Download here​

Trimble is working on SHA-2 updates for all the Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5 they are currently selling

Juniper Systems

Mesa –The 1.2.2 upgrade supports SHA-2 – Download here

Archer 2 and Allegro 2 will be support in a future update

Leica Geosystems

             Zeno 20 – Already supports SHA-2

             Zeno 5 – Planned to be updated with SHA-2 support in 2016

Come and join us at the Esri UC to see ArcPad in action!

Tuesday, July 21st:

Wednesday, July 22: