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How to install the Windows Phone Developer Tools on Windows Server 2008

  • Artikel

The Windows Phone Developer Tools are not officially supported on operating systems other than Windows Vista or Windows 7.  In between the CTP and the CTP Refresh, a block was added to setup to prevent installing on Windows Server 2008 to help enforce this support limitation.  I’ve heard from some folks who were using the original CTP on Windows Server 2008 who cannot move forward to the CTP Refresh or the final release because of this block.

There is a way you can work around the Windows Server 2008 setup block if needed.  Please note that this is not officially supported, so if you try these steps, you are doing so at your own risk.

  1. Download the Windows Phone Developer Tools web bootstrapper and save it to your hard drive

  2. Extract the contents of the setup package by running vm_web.exe /x and choosing a path to extract to

  3. Go to the folder you extracted to in step 2 and open the file baseline.dat in notepad

  4. Look for the section named [gencomp7788]

    Note - you have to change this exact section - this is the one that controls the OS version blocking behavior in Windows Phone Developer Tools setup.
     

  5. Change the value InstallOnLHS from 1 to 0

  6. Change the value InstallOnWin7Server from 1 to 0

  7. Save and close baseline.dat

  8. Run setup.exe /web from the folder you extracted to in step 2

    Note - please make sure that you include the /web command line parameter in step 8.  If you don't, setup will not attempt to download the packages it needs to install, and it will fail to install correctly as a result.

<update date="9/17/2010"> Added an emphasis on steps 4 and 8 - setup will fail if you don't pass in the /web switch when using these steps. Also updated the steps for the final RTW build of Windows Phone Developer Tools. </update>

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 03, 2010
    Thanks for this post - just what we needed. Is there any work in progress to enable this? I would think it's very common to have your build server running on Windows Server (think TFS), so if we at least could have the msbuild integration available (no need for emulator, VS Express, XNA etc).

  • Anonymous
    May 03, 2010
    Hi SharpGIS - I definitely understand the need for this type of scenario, and I've let the team that creates the installer for the Windows Phone Developer Tools know.  It would also help if you can register your feedback by reporting a bug about this issue on the Connect site at http://connect.microsoft.com/visualstudio/.

  • Anonymous
    May 03, 2010
    Hey Aaron, Thanks for this. I guess most people at Microsoft don't realize how many developers use Windows 2008 (R2) as a workstation. Using a server product wouldn't be necessary if MS could introduce a developer SKU of Windows 7 that supports Hyper-V. Ken

  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2010
    Here's the connect bug: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/556651/windows-phone-developer-tools-not-supported-on-windows-server-2008 If you need this, please go and vote.

  • Anonymous
    June 11, 2010
    On Windows Server 2008 R2 I also needed to set InstallOnWin7Server from 1 to 0

  • Anonymous
    August 16, 2010
    Doesnt work on Windows Server 2008 RC2! What do i wrong?

  • Anonymous
    August 16, 2010
    Hi Unknown - Are you saying that the WPDT installer doesn't work on Windows Server 2008 R2, or the workaround on this blog post doesn't work on Windows Server 2008 R2?  Windows Server 2008 is not an officially supported platform for WPDT.  The workaround is provided as-is and is not officially supported.  If you haven't yet, you'll need to try the steps in this blog post in order to be able to install WPDT.  If you already tried the steps and they don't work, please post a copy of %temp%dd_install_vm_xcor_100.txt to a file server (such as http://skydrive.live.com) and reply here with a link I can use to download your log and I'll try to take a further look from there.

  • Anonymous
    September 12, 2010
    Hi astebner, Thanks a lots for the post. I followed your steps but still am getting an error which says installing Visual Studio Express has failed. I have Visual Studio Ultimate installed. Can you suggest me a solution. Thank you.

  • Anonymous
    September 12, 2010
    Hi ShareSilver - Can you please use the tool described at blogs.msdn.com/.../6458047.aspx to gather your Windows Phone Developer Tools setup log files, then post the file %temp%vslogs.cab that is created by that tool to a file server (such as http://skydrive.live.com), then reply back here with a link I can use to download your log files and take a closer look?

  • Anonymous
    September 16, 2010
    Would be nice, if you would give a good reason why it isn't supported. VS2010 and Blend are working great on Win2008. Because of Zune?

  • Anonymous
    September 16, 2010
    Hi Eric Sch - I work on the XNA Game Studio team, and my team doesn't own this decision, so I'm not able to give any kind of official reasons.  One thing I know for sure is that the Zune software doesn't install on server OS's, so that would prevent users from connecting to and deploying apps/games to their Windows Phone devices. Also, XNA Game Studio doesn't block installation but it also doesn't officially support server OS's either.  The main reason there is that server computers and server OSs are typically not optimal for game development scenarios - they tend to have graphics capabilities disabled for security reasons and/or don't have graphics cards that support D3D because servers typically don't need that type of graphics power.

  • Anonymous
    September 16, 2010
    It works for RTW !!!!   Thanks for the treat

  • Anonymous
    September 17, 2010
    This was entirely my own fault and easy to fix, but: I skipped step 4, and changed the values for InstallOnLHS and InstallOnWin7Server in the wrong section.  So, when I ran setup.exe /web, it still gave the error that Win7 was required.  It was easy to catch my error and worked the next time around (now I need to get a new video card to run XNA Emulator though :-/).  But, you could emphasize step 4 more :-)

  • Anonymous
    September 27, 2010
    Awesome! Working for RTM today, Thank you!

  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2010
    Thank you for sharing the workaround for installing on Windows Server 2008! It worked great!

  • Anonymous
    October 04, 2010
    I tried following these steps on Win 2008 R2 with VS Ultimate and the install crashed my machine when I used the "Customize" option.

  • Anonymous
    October 04, 2010
    Hi Piotr - Can you please provide more details about the crash that you're seeing?  Does the installer crash, or does your entire computer crash?  Do you see any specific error messages that might help narrow down this scenario further? Also, can you please use the tool described at blogs.msdn.com/.../6458047.aspx to gather your Windows Phone Developer Tools setup log files, then post the file %temp%vslogs.cab that is created by that tool to a file server (such as http://skydrive.live.com), then reply back here with a link I can use to download your log files and take a closer look?

  • Anonymous
    October 09, 2010
    It work for me : Thanks !

  • Anonymous
    October 12, 2010
    It works! Thanks :]

  • Anonymous
    October 13, 2010
    Hi, What happens on XP. Many of us are still on XP, and budget constraints do not allow us to upgrade to beefier computers that run Vista or later versions of the OS.  Can we disable keys like you describe above to get it to work on XP? Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    October 13, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 22, 2010
    Hi Aaron, unfortunaly I got a bluescreen while doing this in my 2008 R2 Dev VM.   =:-( Fortunaly I set a checkpoint before starting the installation       ;-)

  • Anonymous
    October 31, 2010
    Thanks! Saved my day :)

  • Anonymous
    November 03, 2010
    Thanks. It worked for me.

  • Anonymous
    November 06, 2010
    thanks for the post and it is very helpful

  • Anonymous
    November 15, 2010
    Aaron, thanks a lot. W2K8 (R2) is the dev platform of choice for those who could not stand Vista but could not wait for Win7, and it will be around for a while as a dev platform (thanks to Vista). Please let product planners know: they would make our lives a lot easier buy fully supporting VisualStudio on W2K8. I am pretty sure they've heard about that already... Again, thanks a lot for the tip.

  • Anonymous
    November 16, 2010
    thanks for the helpful I can install on windows 2008 R2 now but still got some problem after install the emulator can't start to work it allways stop in load OS and somebody meet the problem too?

  • Anonymous
    November 17, 2010
    Hi Joe - Windows Server 2008 is not an officially supported platform for the Windows Phone Developer Tools.  I posted this workaround because it can be helpful on some Windows Server 2008 computers, but there are some other Windows Server 2008 computers that things like the emulator will not work on even after using this workaround.

  • Anonymous
    November 21, 2010
    Is there a Server 2008 R2 support for future planned?

  • Anonymous
    November 21, 2010
    Hi Patrick - I don't work on that part of the Windows Phone Developer Tools, so I don't know for sure what is planned for the future.  The best way to register your request for this is to report a feature suggestion on the Connect site at connect.microsoft.com/visualstudio (or vote for it if someone else has already reported it).

  • Anonymous
    December 27, 2010
    Is there a workaround to install Windows Phone Developer Tools October 2010 Update with above setup ? Nothing happens when I try to install this update on windows server 2008 R2, I was able to successfully install the original Windows Phone Developer Tools.

  • Anonymous
    December 28, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 09, 2011
    The installation went through ok, but everytime I run the emulator i get the message "Windows Phone Emulator is doing a complete OS boot..." and my PC does a reboot!

  • Anonymous
    January 09, 2011
    Hi Ahmed - I'd suggest taking a look at the emulator troubleshooting guide on the forums at social.msdn.microsoft.com/.../c4754ebd-f688-4c33-972a-a578b9db12ff to see if any of the workarounds listed there helps in this scenario. Also, please keep in mind that Windows Server 2008 is not an officially supported OS, and this issue may be caused by some kind of incompatibility between this version of Windows and the emulator.

  • Anonymous
    February 25, 2011
    Thanks for this - much respect :)

  • Anonymous
    April 26, 2011
    Thanks once again Aaron for saving the day regarding installing the WP Developer Tools on WS2008! Dinner is on me when I am across the pond soon!

  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2011
    Great indeed, Aaron! Thanks for hte help

  • Anonymous
    June 08, 2011
    I was able to get the installer to run, and it reported to have successfully installed, but when I try to open a WP7 project from VisualStudio2010, I still get the same message: The project file <MyProjectPathNam>.csproj' cannot be opened. The project type is not supported by this installation.

  • Anonymous
    June 08, 2011
    Hi Stephen Hollingworth - First of all, please keep in mind that Windows Server 2008 is not officially supported. That being said, if install completed successfully, I would expect things to work inside of Visual Studio.  Is this project a Silverlight project or an XNA Game Studio project?  Also, is it a project you previously created and are trying to open on this computer, or are you trying to create a new project from the VS 2010 New Project dialog?

  • Anonymous
    June 10, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 03, 2011
    Hi! Do you know how to uninstall from WS2k8? Now I want to install the update for Mango, and I have to uninstall first this version from my machine.. thank you!

  • Anonymous
    July 05, 2011
    Hi Javier Yague - I think uninstall should work correctly if you run setup.exe from the same location that you originally installed from, and make sure that the original install location has the necessary change to baseline.dat that is described in this blog post.  If that doesn't work, it might be necessary to modify the copy of baseline.dat that is installed with the tools.  It will be in a location like the following: For Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.0: C:Program FilesMicrosoft Visual Studio 10.0Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone  - ENUbaseline.dat For Windows Phone SDK 7.1: C:Program FilesMicrosoft Visual Studio 10.0Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone 7.1 (Beta2) - ENUbaseline.dat Note - the above paths assume that you are using a 32-bit version of Windows and that you installed VS to the default location.  If these assumptions are not true on your computer, then you will need to update the path appropriately in order to be able to find baseline.dat on your computer.

  • Anonymous
    September 02, 2011
    Excellent post. thank you

  • Anonymous
    September 17, 2011
    Thanks a lot for the post! This definately helped me in unblocking.

  • Anonymous
    October 10, 2011
    Just used your post to install Windows Phone SDK 7.1 on Windows Server 2008 R2.  Worked like a charm (only difference being vm_web.exe is now vm_web2.exe)!  Thank you SO much!!

  • Anonymous
    January 28, 2012
    Thank you!!! Every day we learn something new. =D

  • Anonymous
    February 16, 2012
    This worked for me on a XP SP3...

  • Anonymous
    February 27, 2012
    thanks to have copy my guide http://www.wpmitalia.com/2011/03/31/guida-installiamo-windows-phone-developer-tools-su-windows-xp/

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 13, 2012
    It fails with Server 2008 R2 even after the workaround...

  • Anonymous
    March 15, 2012
    Hi Pankaj Nikam - Do you mean that setup still fails, or setup succeeds but the product doesn't work afterwards?  If it is a setup failure, can you please use the tool described at blogs.msdn.com/.../6458047.aspx to collect all of your setup log files, post the file named %temp%vslogs.cab that this tool will create to a file server (such as http://skydrive.live.com), and then reply back here and provide a link that I can use to download your log files and take a closer look?

  • Anonymous
    April 03, 2012
    Thank you very much for this tips. Very helpful!!

  • Anonymous
    April 23, 2012
    That was awesome - worked like a charm - I really appreciate it.

  • Anonymous
    April 25, 2012
    Thanks dude!

  • Anonymous
    May 29, 2012
    trying to download window phone sdk 7.1 on my system which has Visual studio 2008 but it comes up with an error saying they are not compactible. Any ideas?

  • Anonymous
    May 29, 2012
    Hi Michael - Can you please use the tool described at blogs.msdn.com/.../6458047.aspx to collect all of your setup log files, upload the file named %temp%vslogs.cab that this tool will create to a file server (such as http://skydrive.live.com), and then reply back here and provide a link that I can use to download your log files and take a closer look?

  • Anonymous
    July 09, 2012
    Hi Aaron Stebner, the installation went fine with this approach. When I try to create a PhoneGap project it gives me the following error   c:usersAdministratorAppDataLocalTempxyzCordovaStarter.csproj(134,3). The imported project "C:Program Fiels(x86)MSBuildMicrosoftSilverlight for Phonev4.0Microsoft.Silverlight.WindowsPhone71.Overrides.targets" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk Am I missing anything here? Thanks & Regards Srinivas

  • Anonymous
    July 10, 2012
    Hi Srinivas - That .targets file should have been installed by the Windows Phone SDK 7.1.  Did you install 7.1 or the older 7.0 version of the tools?  If you installed 7.0, I'd suggest installing 7.1 instead.  If you installed 7.1 and still see this error, then I'd suggest trying to repair 7.1 to see if it will restore that .targets file that it says is missing from your computer.

  • Anonymous
    August 05, 2012
     I had to do two additional edits to the web installer config file.  It wanted to install visual studio - but it could not, and, I already had visual studio installed.  So I did the same edit mentioned above about gencomp7788 for the two sections that looked like visual studio sections (x86 and x64).  It is possible that my Expressions or 64bit 2008R2 is what needed these additional two edits that I made that caused it to skip the visual studio downloads

  • Anonymous
    August 29, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2013
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2013
    Hi HikerJohn - The Windows Phone SDK 8.0 doesn't have a block on server OS's like the Windows Phone SDK 7.1 does.

  • Anonymous
    May 20, 2013
    seems to also apply to SDK7.1 from developer.windowsphone.com/.../downloadsdk

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2014
    This works fine for me. But when I open VS 2010 for Windows Phone and create a windows phone app it asking me to install Windows SDK 7.1 and when I try to install Windows SDK 7.1 it is checking for my operating system and throw an error saying Windows 7 or higher versions needed.

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2014
    Hi Gopala - I haven't heard of this type of error before.  What is the exact download link you're using for the Windows SDK 7.1?