How to–Install Windows Phone 7.1 SDK in Windows 8

I have seen people keep complaining that they are unable to install Windows Phone SDK 7.1 on Windows 8 and they ended up unable to develop Windows Phone applications using Visual Studio 2010.

I am going to give you some tips in getting Windows Phone SDK installed on your Windows 8 PC along with Visual Studio 2010(Express, Pro, Premium or Ultimate) according to your choice of development using Visual Studio IDE. 

To get started with Windows Phone SDK on Windows 8, we requires the following installation packages:

1. Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable

2. Windows Phone SDK 7.1 – Web Install or Full ISO Download  (Recommended: is full ISO download, some packages might get corrupted in download)

3. Windows Phone  SDK 7.1.1 Update (WPSDK-7.1.1-KB2669191-x86.exe – support for Windows 8, Tango build– 256MB and 512MB emulator support – Also this update fixes an issue that prevents the emulator in the Windows Phone SDK 7.1 from working correctly on Windows 8.)

Note:

• Assuming that you already have Visual Studio 2010 RTM + Service Pack 1 installed.
• The Windows Phone SDK 7.1 is compatible with the final version of Visual Studio 2010 SP1.

I am using a 90 day trial version of Windows 8 Enterprise for this article.

Step 0: Install Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable from http://www.xbox.com/en-US/LIVE/PC/DownloadClient. – this will help you with successful installation of XNA Game Studio.

Step 1: Mount the Windows Phone 7.1 SDK ISO file(WPSDKv71_en1.iso) (it is easier with Windows 8, just double click on ISO – Windows 8 will create virtual dvd drive and loads the ISO contents to it.  

Step 2: Double click on “Setup.exe” , you will see a warning prompt like below – select “Run the Program without getting help”

Now the installation will continue as normal.

Step 3: Installation will complete and For some cases at the end of you will see a warning message that – the XNA Game Studio 4.0 and Visual Studio Extensions for XNA Game Studio 4.0 are failed, because you did not have Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable installed.  That is fine – you would not be needing XNA Game Studio if you are only planning to develop Windows Phone application using Silverlight.

Alternate Steps to install XNA Game Studio

a.) Before continuing further, download and install the latest version of the Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable from http://www.xbox.com/en-US/LIVE/PC/DownloadClient. or you can install this setup first and then install Windows Phone 7.1 SDK.

b.) Now Go to the WCUWindowsPhone folder in the ISO,

c.) Right click on XNAGS40_Setup.exe – Select run in compatibility mode for Window 7 or Windows XP.

d.) Select Privilege Level –> “Run the program as an Administrator“

e.) Right click on the XNAGS40_Setup.exe – select “Run as Administrator” from the context menu,  you will see the Program Compatibility Assistant warning

f.) Select “Run the Program without getting help”

g.) Click “next” to continue

h.) Specify the firewall setup as mentioned below or you can continue by selecting “No, I do not want  these rules enabled.”

i.) Now the installation will continue and you will receive a completed dialogue at the end.

i.) After installation is complete successfully – install “sde_xde2-enu,msi”(for 32bit or x86) or “sde_xde2x64-enu.msi”(for 64 bit or AMD64) – depending on whether you have 64bit or 32bit OS.

Step 4:  Now you can install Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update (WPSDK-7.1.1-KB2669191-x86.exe)

The 7.1.1 Update is really just that – it’s an update to the existing WPSDK: it doesn’t add much in the way of new features to your WPSDK installation; it updates your existing install to do a few new tricks:

• The Visual Studio IDE is patched to enable selection from a list of emulators, and launching it (note that the WPSDK can only support connecting to one at a time, though)
• The Windows Phone [512 MB device] emulator image is updated to use build 8773
• A second, new emulator device image is included, allowing you to emulate running your app on a 256 MB device
• The Microsoft Advertising SDK is updated to the latest version (previously only available as a separate install ), which fixes some issues devs were encountering at runtime
• IntelliSense now supports specifying the 512 MB device requirement in your manifest file, should you choose to opt your app out from running on the new 256 MB devices
• Language support is again consistent both in the IDE (the 7.1.1 Update supports all 10 of the WPSDK 7.1 languages) and in the emulator OS (Malay and Indonesian have been added)
• Ref Source

Voila!, now you are ready to start Windows Phone 7.x development with Visual Studio 2012 SP1 on Windows 8. 

1.) You can see the Windows Phone project templates in Visual Studio 2010

2.) Select the target version of your App

3.) Emulator Selection drop down in Visual Studio 2010

4.) See the debugging on Windows Phone emulator

Step 5: Sit and enjoy with Windows Phone Development

Hope this tips were helpful. Please leave your comments, if you are facing any issues. I will get back to you as soon as I can.