Windows Phone 7.1.1 SDK and Emulator Options

Some of you might have started playing with the new 7.1.1 SDK for Windows Phone community technology preview. The biggie feature is a 256 megabyte emulator to represent the 256 memory phones coming out soon. The emulator in the 7.1 SDK can only be run as as a 512 megabyte emulator. The 256 megabyte emulator in 7.1.1 SDK is a great environment for devs to use to test their apps in the 256mb memory environments.

Once you've installed the 7.1.1 SDK you'll see a 256mb and 512mb emulator option in your Visual Studio menu in the Windows Phone Project Targets drop down menu. But… The Windows Phone SDK 7.1 -> Windows Phone Emulator link in your Start Menu will no longer work. If you try and click it, nothing will happen. To fix the click misfire, add "- 256 MB" or "- 512 MB" to the target property of the menu item link. New command line mappings are below to help you out. I also used these to setup two desktop shortcuts for each of the emulators.

256MB Command Line - "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.1\Tools\XDE Launcher\XdeLauncher.exe" "Windows Phone 7" "Windows Phone Emulator - 256 MB"
512MB Command Line - "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.1\Tools\XDE Launcher\XdeLauncher.exe" "Windows Phone 7" "Windows Phone Emulator - 512 MB"

Remember, the 7.1.1 SDK is a Techology Preview only at this point. There is no go live license for it. You cannot deploy production apps to marketplace built with the 7.1.1 SDK at this time. The 7.1.1 SDK cannot be side by side deployed with the 7.1 environment either. So what does that mean? Don't install the 7.1.1 SDK on a box that you are going to use to deploy apps from into production in the near future. Sorry! I'm sure Microsoft will get the supported version out soon!