Introducing Windows Phone 7 Development Tools
Today at MIX10, we are introducing the Windows Phone 7 Series development story. At the heart of Windows Phone 7 Series development is Silverlight. This enables you to bring your existing development skills in building Windows Phone 7 applications.
Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP, Microsoft’s developer toolset for Windows Phone 7 Series, is now available for download.
The Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP contains what you need to get started with Windows Phone 7 development. Specifically, it includes the following:
- CTP of Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone – This allows you to develop and debug your phone application in a familiar development environment. If you are already using the release candidate of Visual Studio 2010, the Windows Phone 7 Series Add-in for Visual Studio lets you create applications alongside your web, cloud and desktop applications.
- Windows Phone 7 Series Emulator – This is integrated with Visual Studio so you can see your app in action and debug it as you would with any other VS project.
- Silverlight - Microsoft has extended our platform technologies from the web, desktop and console to the phone giving developers a broader application development experience. With your existing development skills you can start developing applications for the phone today. Or if you have a great app already, Silverlight lets you write once and optimize everywhere, including the phone.
- XNA Game Studio – This enables you to build games spanning the phone, desktop and Xbox 360.
Expression Blend for Windows Phone, a professional design tool for building immersive mobile experiences in Silverlight, is not a part of the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP, but you can download it today as well.
Getting Started
Developing phone applications for Windows Phone 7 Series is similar to developing Silverlight or XNA applications in Visual Studio. The Start Page in Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone offers learning resources to help you get started.
Your application can be in Silverlight or XNA. You might be wondering when to use each technology. Silverlight allows you to develop rich internet and out of browser applications and contains device-specific functionality giving you the ability to create a broad range of applications. For game developers, XNA provides a great solution for building games that span from phone to desktop to Xbox 360. When developing your application Visual Studio provides project and item templates to get you started with either Silverlight or XNA projects.
Developing the App
Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone extends the VS design, coding, and debugging capabilities with phone-specific extensions and features. The designer surface is skinned with the phone’s visual theme so you can see how your application will look on the device. As controls are added to the app, they automatically adopt the Windows Phone Design System look and feel. Of course, you can change the style if you prefer a different theme for your application.
When you’re ready to run your application, you can use F5 to run it like any other application developed in VS. You can debug your application using the Windows Phone 7 Series emulator. The emulator supports adjusting the orientation and has phone buttons available on the device. Windows Phone 7 Series phones won’t be available until later this year, but the emulator helps you get a head start on developing your apps now.
Download the Tools
Starting today you can download the Windows Phone Developer Tools from the Windows Phone or Microsoft Express sites. To learn more about Windows Phone 7 Series development, please visit the Charlie Kindel on Windows Phone Development blog.
Namaste!
Comments
Anonymous
March 15, 2010
Oh, this is awesome news! I can't wait to get home and try it out.Anonymous
March 15, 2010
Soma, Now you're talking! :)Anonymous
March 15, 2010
How soon can we have VB.Net Support? I was very surprised it was not in here already. Having support for VB.Net is very important to us!Anonymous
March 15, 2010
Hi Steele, We will definitely have support for writing VB.NET apps for Windows Phone 7. The team is working on the details and the timeline for the same. Stay tuned. -somasegarAnonymous
March 15, 2010
I installed the tools and when i tried to debug the loading message do not disappear. I suspect that I installed this tools on a virtual machine. Am I right? ThanksAnonymous
March 15, 2010
I have read that apps for Windows Phone 7 will only be downloadable from the App Store. How would a company be able to use their own in-house bespoke app on a phone, given that they wouldn't want it shared with the rest of the World?Anonymous
March 15, 2010
Hi Soma, How is Microsoft going to address the needs of the Enterprise and business customers? I heard that apps for Windows Phone 7 can only be sold and installed from Microsoft App store for Windows Phone 7 after being "certified" by Microsoft. What if developers in businesses want to create proprietary apps for their businesses? How will these apps be deployed to Windows Phone 7?Anonymous
March 16, 2010
Hi "Fatal Error Solver", Yes - The Windows Phone 7 emulator is a VM image. -somasegarAnonymous
March 16, 2010
kevinw, I heard in MIX yesterday that developers will be able to deploy apps to their locally connected phone just about as fast as to the emulator. It sounds like you will be able to deploy your app just fine.Anonymous
March 16, 2010
Hi "Fatal Erroe Solver" If you have installed Windows Phone 7 Development Tools on a VM, then you could hit this problem when starting the emulator. Please refer to link below and the release notes have more info and that this configuration is not supported in this release. http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/9/2/D926FB38-BB43-4D87-AE5A-1A3391279FAC/ReleaseNotes.htm If need be please contact me at sudeepb at microsoft dot com. Sudeep BharatiAnonymous
March 16, 2010
This is coolAnonymous
March 17, 2010
Soma, I have been waiting a long time for this. Thanks to everyone at Microsoft! Btw, the new Silverlight Worldwide Telescope app for the Silverlight Bing Maps is awesome! It needs some performance improvements, but overall its excellent.Anonymous
March 17, 2010
Hi Sam, Thanks for the feedback. I will pass it on to the teams. -somasegarAnonymous
March 17, 2010
Too Bad Windows Phone 7 Development Tools are not supported on WIN XP even though Visual Studio 2010 RC is.Anonymous
March 17, 2010
Hi Kevin, You are right. WinXP doesn’t support certain technical features that are needed by the Mobile tooling. You need Windows Vista or Windows 7 to be able to use these tools. -somasegarAnonymous
March 18, 2010
The comment has been removedAnonymous
March 19, 2010
Thanks for the answer Sudeep BharatiAnonymous
March 21, 2010
Hi Soma, The single and only most important thing that Microsoft needs to improve in Silverlight at this time is PERFORMANCE. It needs to load faster in the browser (for PCs) and I am hoping that Silverlight apps in Windows Phone 7 will load at near the speed of light!Anonymous
March 25, 2010
Tom and Kevinw: We will be disclosing later in the Spring the mechanisms available for Windows Phone 7 Series customers to distribute applications privately. Stay tuned... Polita Paulus MicrosoftAnonymous
April 06, 2010
What if I have an application that is written C++, is there an exception to XNA/Silverlight -- my app is a lightweight XML DB - I have a.NET API for it, but need it to urn native???Anonymous
April 06, 2010
londo, Windows Phone 7 will not run native C++ applications. You might consider porting your application to Silverlight and XNA. Polita Paulus MicrosoftAnonymous
April 06, 2010
>> Windows Phone 7 will not run native C++ applications. You might consider porting your application to Silverlight and XNA. Do you mean we can't write native applications for Windows Phone 7 at all and we should choose either Silverlight or XNA? It's a real big shame.Anonymous
April 08, 2010
yes，You might consider porting your application to Silverlight Lucy for you !Anonymous
April 08, 2010
Really awesome....was just waiting for dis...and even for Windows Phone 7 to launch offically.... :)Anonymous
April 09, 2010
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 03, 2010
phuff, Not sure if you are still checking this out... but, how are you guys doing with Windows Phone 7 development for distributing applications privately for enterprises? Also, how is Microsoft addressing issues highlighted in this article: http: // arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/05/unlocked-windows-phone-7-image-shows-office-progress.arsAnonymous
May 04, 2010
Hi Tom- we still don't have anything to share on enterprise app distribution yet, but keep your eye out for news later this Spring. Polita PaulusAnonymous
June 06, 2010
The comment has been removedAnonymous
June 09, 2010
Windows Phone 7 Dreamer, the link you provided is for the Windows Mobile 6.5 Marketplace. You can find the just-announced Windows Phone 7 Marketplace policies here: windowsteamblog.com/.../new-policies-for-next-gen-windows-phone-marketplace.aspx. Polita Paulus MicrosoftAnonymous
September 16, 2010
I want to use time control in my Mobile app, so how to do it in VS'10 for windows phone, because it doesn't seem that it has timecontrol option.. Help me!!Anonymous
September 17, 2010
Adheep, are you looking for a time picker control? You can find one in the Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit, available here: silverlight.codeplex.com/.../52297. Polita Paulus MicrosoftAnonymous
September 28, 2010
The comment has been removedAnonymous
October 10, 2010
Thanks to everyone at Microsoft! Btw, the new Silverlight Worldwide Telescope app for the Silverlight Bing Maps is awesome! It needs some performance improvements, but overall its excellent.Michael from <a href="www.zco.com/windows-phone-7-application-development.aspx">Windows Phone 7 Application Development</a>Anonymous
November 05, 2010
hi , this tools aren't support windows xp ? I have windows xp and sp3....Anonymous
November 05, 2010
Bill, the Windows Phone developer tools require Windows Vista or Windows 7. Windows XP is not supported. Apologies for any inconvenience this causes. Polita Paulus MicrosoftAnonymous
December 13, 2010
Thats great!! There are a lot of great tutorials on www.yourwindowsphone7.com.Anonymous
December 29, 2010
To install Phone 7 Development tools on XP:
- Download the Web-Installer
- Run 'vm_web.exe /x'
- edit baseline.dat
- under the section [gencomp7788], change these values: InstallOnLHS from 1 to 0 InstallOnWinXP from 1 to 0
- Save and close
- run 'setup.exe /web' NOTE: The Phone Emulator will not install, it will crash on install and at runtime, but the rest of the development tools will install and run fine. Hope this helps.
Anonymous
January 18, 2011
Thanks for informative post, Soma. We are working on windows phone 7 application development. www.synapse.co.in/.../windows_phone7.shtmlAnonymous
May 26, 2011
Hi, Article is nice. How to use c cdode in windows phone 7Anonymous
May 27, 2011
manohar_227: Windows Phone 7 will not run native C++ applications. Give Silverlight and XNA a try! Polita Paulus MicrosoftAnonymous
October 15, 2011
The comment has been removed