Windows Phone SDK 8.0 now available for download

As announced earlier today on the Windows Phone Developer Blog and the Visual Studio Blog, the Windows Phone SDK 8.0 is now available for download. Here is some information to help you get started installing and using the Windows Phone SDK 8.0.

Download links

• Web download page - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35471
• Full ISO image - https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=257234

• Windows Phone SDK 8.0 release notes - https://download.microsoft.com/download/9/3/8/938A5074-461F-4E3D-89F4-5CE2F42C1E36/fulltril30/relnotes/Windows%20Phone%208%20Release%20Notes.htm

The Windows Phone SDK 8.0 is available in the same set of languages as the Windows Phone SDK 7.1 – Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish.

Documentation and getting started links

• Windows Phone Dev Center - https://dev.windowsphone.com
• Windows Phone documentation home - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402535(v=vs.105).aspx
• Getting started with Windows Phone development - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402529(v=vs.105).aspx
• What’s new in the Windows Phone SDK 8.0 - https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/jj206940(v=vs.105).aspx

Installing the Windows Phone SDK 8.0

The Windows Phone SDK 8.0 must be installed on a Windows 8 x64 computer, and the computer must have a processor that supports Second Level Address Translation (SLAT) in order to fully function. You can use the tool at https://slatstatuscheck.codeplex.com/ to determine if your processor supports SLAT. If you install on a computer with a processor that does not support SLAT, then Windows Phone SDK 8.0 setup will complete, but the Windows Phone 8 emulator will not function correctly.

Unlike in previous releases, Windows Phone SDK 8.0 setup will not block attempts to install on Windows Server 2012. However, the Windows Phone 8 emulator will not function correctly on Windows Server 2012.

If you run into an installation or uninstallation failure for the Windows Phone SDK 8.0, you can use the log collection tool to gather your setup log files. This log collection tool will create a file named %temp%\vslogs.cab. Once you have gathered your setup log files, you can upload them to a file server of your choice (such as https://skydrive.live.com), and post a link to the log files in the forums to get additional support.

Notes about XNA Game Studio

The Windows Phone SDK 8.0 includes a subset of the XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh product. Specifically, it only allows you to develop Windows Phone games that use the XNA Framework. You can see more information about what XNA Framework functionality is supported in the Windows Phone SDK 8.0 in this documentation topic.

If you are developing Windows games or Xbox 360 games that use the XNA Framework, you must continue to use an edition of Visual Studio 2010 and one of the following products:

• XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh
• Windows Phone SDK 7.1 and Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update

Both of the above products can be installed side-by-side with the Windows Phone SDK 8.0.

<update date="10/31/2012"> Fixed documentation links to point to MSDN instead of redirecting through the Windows Phone Dev Center. </update>

Comments

• Anonymous
  October 30, 2012
  No Windows Server style workaround this time for the Windows 8 requirement? Plus MS is making XNA development really difficult. I guess no more XNA after this. No update for XNA, all the cool new features I was missing in the WP version of XNA are now in the D3D supported, (Video to texture for example)

• Anonymous
  October 31, 2012
  Can you explain in what sense  the Windows Phone 8 emulator will not function correctly on Windows Server 2012? What exactly will fail?

• Anonymous
  November 01, 2012
  Hi Luxspes - I don't have full details, but my understanding is that the emulator might work in some circumstances on server OS's but isn't guaranteed to work.  As a result, the emulator is not officially supported on server OS's.  The primary reason for not blocking installation on server OS's this time around is to better support nightly build scenarios, and those scenarios don't require the ability to use the emulator.

• Anonymous
  November 02, 2012
  >> (SLAT) in order to fully function. > will not function correctly on Windows Server 2012 AFAIK Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V does not need SLAT CPU to work. So maybe you can start WP8 VM on Server 2012 even with non-SLAT CPU, but because of missing features it will not work correctly ...

• Anonymous
  November 03, 2012
  Hi Doknir - Correct.  The SLAT requirement is not specific to the Windows Phone 8 emulator.  Client versions of Windows 8 require SLAT before they will allow you to enable Hyper-V.  There is more information about that requirement at technet.microsoft.com/.../hh857623.aspx. Server versions of Windows do not enforce the same SLAT requirement and you can enable Hyper-V without SLAT on server versions of Windows.  However, typical server configurations don't have all of the hardware or software requirements needed by the emulator, so it may not function correctly in some scenarios.

• Anonymous
  November 13, 2012
  BTW, here is an interesting post: social.msdn.microsoft.com/.../7f227684-0227-43ed-94e3-8e56c6b0d3c6 "That's not exactly technically correct. Hyper-V, on a Windows 8 client, can't be installed without the computer providing SLAT support. However, I've installed the Hyper-V feature on a Windows To Go install while the disk was connected to a laptop with SLAT support, moved the disk to a laptop that did not have SLAT support and Hyper-V continues to work. The blocking is done at install time. Once you've got the feature installed, it will continue to work even if the new system doesn't support SLAT."