Before you can develop a Windows Phone 8 app, you'll need to install the Windows
Phone 8 SDK (Software Development Kit) on a computer running Windows 8 64-bit
edition. The reason for this requirement is the Windows Phone Emulator ... it is running
as a virtual machine in Hyper-V, Microsoft's virtualization platform. So, you'll be running
the Windows Phone 8 operating system in a window that looks like a real phone, on
your desktop for the purpose of testing your work.
1. Understanding the Operating System Requirements
So to be clear, if you're not sitting at a computer with Windows 8 64-bit edition at this
moment, you'll need to install that first. If you're not sure which version of Windows 8
your computer is running, you can go to the Control Panel, System and Security ...
under System you'll see the System type:
TIP: I'm going to save you some time and expense. If you're running a previous version
of Windows and it is a 32-bit edition, you cannot simply use Windows Upgrade Advisor
from a previous version of a Windows 32-bit operating system to Windows 8 64-bit.
Instead, you'll need to purchase the Windows Pro Upgrade DVD.
For a more thorough explanation of this and every possible scenario imaginable, check
out Paul Thurrott's post at this URL:
In my case, I purchased the OEM version of Windows 8 64-bit Pro. I was concerned
that I couldn't do a clean install using the Upgrade, however that apparently is not the
case and I could have saved a few bucks with the Upgrade option.
TIP: Also, Windows 8 64-bit is NOT the same as Windows 8 Pro. There's actually:
· Windows 8 64-bit Pro
· Windows 8 64-bit
· Windows 8 32-bit Pro
· Windows 8 32-bit
For the purpose of developing Windows Phone apps, you don't need the Pro option, just
make sure whatever you choose is 64-bit.
Next, you download and install the Windows Phone SDK 8. If you already have Visual
Studio 2012 Professional or greater, the installer will merely add the tools required for
Phone development. If you DON'T have Visual Studio 2012 installed, the installer will
add the Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows Phone 8. This will provide a single-
task version of Visual Studio meant specifically for Phone 8 development, so you won't
get the tools to create Windows 8 Store apps, Windows Presentation Foundation apps,
ASP.NET web apps, and so on. I'll be using this version for the remainder of this video
series, but I assure you the experience is almost identical to using Visual Studio 2012
Professional or greater.
Windows Phone SDK
I'm sure you're familiar with downloading and running an installer, so I won't walk
through that process here.
2. Optional ... Enabling Hyper-V
During installation, you may see this message:
In this case you'll need to enable your motherboard to run Hyper-V.
How to enable Hyper-V for the Windows Phone Emulator
In my case, I recently built my own machine and used the Asus Sabertooth Z77, which
is a high-end military grade motherboard. I used the latest Intel i7 chip—the i7-3770K
which fits in an LGA1155 socket. Most importantly, it supports Intel's Hyper-Threading
Technology ... I just have to tell the motherboard to turn that functionality ON.
In the BIOS for my motherboard, I had to enable Hyper-V by going to Advanced
Settings, then the Advanced tab, then looking through the possible settings. In my case,
it was something called Hyper-threading.
This may sound scary, but it's a one-time change and after I worked past the
terminology and how to actually get into your BIOS, it all went smoothly:
What I would recommend is this—if you're not sure how to do this for your particular
brand of computer, just run the SDK installer and follow it's instructions. It's possible
you'll need to do nothing special. If you DO need to do something, it's very possible
someone else in the world with the same exact computer that you have has worked
through this issue and blogged about it. Here's where good searching skills with a
hour of reading and researching—can save you headaches. As a last resort, contact the manufacturer of your computer to simply ask how to enable hyper-threading in the
BIOS. They should be able to point you to a knowledge base article on how to perform
this operation.
Unconventional Installs
But as the old expression goes, there's more than one way to skin a cat ... I was able to
successfully install the Windows Phone SDK 8 and Visual Studio 2012 Express for
Windows Phone on a Mac Pro running OSX Mountain Lion and VMWare Fusion. I just
made sure when I created the VM that it was 64-bit and prior to installing the operating
system, I setup the Processors and Memory in VMWare Fusion:
... I gave it plenty of cores and memory, then made sure that "Enable hypervisor
applications in this virtual machine" was checked. I can't remember if I needed the
second option, "Enable code profiling applications ion this virtual machine" checked ...
it's been a month since I set this up ... but since it works with this turned on, I
recommend this, too:
I only bring up the Mac with VMWare for this reason ... if there's a will, there's a way.
What seems hard is usually pretty easy ... just need to know which options to configure.
After you work through these requirements, you're ready to get started and follow along
in this series. So, we'll begin in the next video.
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