Windows Phone App Development for Beginners #2: Installing the Tools

published on: 12/20/2011 | Views: N/A | Tags: Beginners

by WindowsPhoneGeek

This is the second post  from the "Windows Phone Application Development for Beginners" series of articles in which I use a more informal approach in order to explain everything you need to know in order to get started developing Windows Phone applications in a simple and easy to understand way.

• Windows Phone App Development for Beginners #1: Intro
• Windows Phone App Development for Beginners #2 Installing the Tools
• Windows Phone App Development for Beginners #3 Getting Help
• Windows Phone App Development for Beginners #4 First Visual Studio project
• Windows Phone App Development for Beginners #5 Basic XAML
• Windows Phone App Development for Beginners #6 Layout

NOTE: If you are a professional Windows Phone Developer you should probably stop reading now.

After you have read the first intro post, you should know what is Windows Phone in general and why it is worth developing apps for this platform. Now it is time to learn a little bit more about what software you need to install in order to start building your future Windows Phone apps.

Basic Tools for Windows Phone Application Development

If you are new to programming then may be you are not familiar with the different tools used to develop apps for Windows Phone. In short you will need to know what is :

• Silverlight

Silverlight is a framework for event-driven, XAML-based application development. I.e. you use Silverlight for building applications that you can submit to the marketplace. C# is the main language in which you can develop the code of your Windows Phone apps. XAML is the language used to create the user interface for the Windows Phone apps.

For more information, see: The Silverlight and XNA Frameworks for Windows Phone.

• Visual Studio

This is the development environment used for Windows Phone app development. It enables you to create basic application projects even without writing any code, just with a few mouse clicks and using the visual designer. Visual Studio also includes several Windows Phone project templates to help you start new projects quickly.

For more information: Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone.

• Expression Blend

Expression Blend for Windows Phone allows designers to create XAML-based interfaces for Windows Phone applications. You can design the appearance of your app using the designer surface and the XAML code is automatically generated for you.

For more information, see Expression Blend.

• Windows Phone Emulator

The Windows Phone Emulator is integrated into Visual Studio and Expression Blend. Once you've built your app, you can test it using the default Windows Phone Emulator (i.e. you can see the way users will see your app).

For more information, see Windows Phone Emulator.

NOTE: As mentioned in my previous post you get all these tools completely for FREE when you install the Windows Phone SDK described in the section below!

Set up the Development Environment

Make sure your your PC should has:

• Windows® Vista® x86 or x64, with Service Pack 2 (all editions except Starter Edition) OR

• Windows® 7 x86 or x64 (all editions except Starter Edition)

• at least 3 GB RAM

• Windows® Phone Emulator requires a DirectX® 10 or later graphics card with WDDM 1.1 driver and DDI 10 or later.

  NOTE:  You can use the emulator with older graphic cars as well but you will not be able to use all its features

Next Download and install Windows Phone SDK 7.1

NOTE: You must uninstall the any previous Beta versions of the Windows Phone tools(if any)!

Step1. Go to the official web site and select vm_web2.exe download button.

Step2: Run vm_web2.exe

Run vm_web2.exe and press the Accept button and then press "Install Now":

NOTE: The fill installation takes about 30 minutes!

The Windows Phone SDK includes Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, Windows Phone Emulator, XNA Game Studio, Expression Blend for Windows Phone, samples, and documentation.

Step3. That's it you now have set up the environment for building your future Windows Phone apps.

That's it for now. In the next posts you will learn how to start building your first "cool" Windows Phone app step by step.

Hope the post was helpful.

You can also follow us on Twitter @winphonegeek

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