Can I develop Windows 10 App on a Windows 8.1 device? - windows

I would like to follow the guide (http://microsoftedge.github.io/WebAppsDocs/en-US/win10/CreateHWA.htm) to develop a Windows 10 app, but it says it needs the Windows 10 Insider Preview as the requirements. However, I cannot download it right now as it states that:
We’re very close to the public release of Windows 10 so we’re not onboarding any new PCs to the Windows Insider Program just now.
Can I now have any ways to develop a Windows 10 App? I want to finish making it so that it can be out once Windows 10 is released. Thank you!

You can develop Windows 10 apps with Windows 8.1,too. You need Visual Studio 2015 to and the latest Windows SDK. In the future you will be able to develop from Windows 7, too. (Both has been announced at the build conference in San Francisco.)
There will be some limitations - you can't deploy your Win10 app to your local system, as you are running W8.1 locally. (But you could use a remote or virtual machine).
There will also be some limitations around the XAML designer.
The easiest way is probably to start developing on a remote machine in the cloud. Here's a guide how to set things up: https://github.com/DanielMeixner/DevDreamMachine
As we are getting closer to release of VS2015 and W10, please check out this post, too. There are some limitations around app development between release of VS2015 and release of Windows which might affect you.
http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2015/06/29/release-dates-and-compatibility-visual-studio-2015-and-windows-10-sdk/

Related

Windows Mobile 5 Modern Emulator

I need to bring back from the dead an app desined to Windows Mobile 5.
I tried to find an emulator but everything seems to be dead already.
Is there any emulator that can run Windows Mobile 5 on Windows 10 or Android?
Windows Device emulator is also part of VS 2003 and 2008. If you have a msdn developer subscription, you can still download and install these.
At my time as technical support engineer I had running the device emulator stand alone edition as well as VS 2008 running with windows 10. You can even get active sync up and running.
Contact me directly if you need more details.
Regards
Josef

Environment for developing both Windows Phone 8.1 and Universal Windows apps

I am an experienced dev that haven't been writing too much code lately, so a bit rusty and would like to have some help in creating the right environment for developing apps for BOTH Win Phone 8.1 (which is what I am carrying on me and would like to test with) and also Win 10 apps (UWP). This is in order to save myself a lot of time in trial and error, which is what I have been doing lately without success.
I have a box at home that is now Windows 10, and I think it was Windows 8 when I bought it. It has both VS 2013 and VS 2015, and I tried to download all the right SDK's to be able to use the Windows Phone 8.1 emulator. It was a nightmare, including going to the BIOS and enabling the Hyper-V thing (I think it worked at some point). Currently I'm having too many problems related to the dev environment, and its getting frustrating. Even the Win 10 emulator is not working. So no UWP emulator nor Windows Phone 8.1 emulator for me right now.
So instead of tackling these problems one by one, my plan is to buy myself a new laptop and build it right, with everything that I need in order to be able to write both Win Phone 8.1 apps, as well as Xamarin, and Windows 10 apps.
I'm wondering if I can ask for a comprehensive list of specifications for me, including recommended OS version (Will Win 7 work? I prefer it), VS version, SDK's, etc.. My goal is that after I buy and setup this laptop, all i'll have to do is just choose the right project and start writing.
Thanks.
Wow, downvoted just like that - not sure why so much.
If someone is looking for an answer or pointer, here's a reply in another forum, which helped me at least:
VS 2017 does not support development of Windows 8.1 store apps - phone or PC. See this link for platform compatibility. You will need to fallback to using VS 2015 for any Windows 8.1 projects. I do Windows 8.1 and 10 development on a single system and it works fine. You just have to have both VS 2015 & 2017 installed. Windows 7 will not work for developing 8.1 and 10 apps. Windows 8.1 has a Universal app target that allowed you to create a single app for PC and phone (I've never used it), but it is nothing like the Windows 10 UWP platform.

Getting started with a Windows Store app

I'm looking to get started on a pretty simple Windows Store app. It'll be distributed inside a business, not public (there's a more specific way to say that but...). It seems you can't get past the very first step of installing Visual Studio if you aren't on Windows 8.1. I have a Win8 device (a Surface Pro 3), but I'd be more comfortable developing on my Windows 7 Desktop. Long question to say, do I have to purchase a Windows 8 license to run a VM on my Desktop for development? Or is there an easier way to get Visual Studio installed and started? Windows Dev guidelines, just kinda jump over that little step...
Not sure why you would keep a 5 year old OS on your desktop, but you do need Windows 8 to do Windows 8 development. Not sure if there's any way to develop on Windows 7 and do remote debugging to a Windows 8 device - I doubt that, but that would be much more painful anyway than debugging on your dev box.
Yes, you need a license even for VM. However, Microsoft has the best support for developers and you can find some programm that will be suitable for you. BizSpark, DreamSpark, AzureCloud etc. Maybe you'll be able to get all the software for free.
Regarding the new system, Windows 8 is same as Windows 7 in desktop mode. Except start menu. So, you can install Pokki or Start8 to 'fix' it.

Windows phone apps on Windows 10

I'm creating apps for windows phone pretty much since the beginning and I was wondering..
Will the Windows Phone apps run on Windows 10 (for Phone) ?
I could not find an answer anywhere and I wonder if the Windows Phone store will just disappear with the new version of Windows.
As Erno said: We don't know yet. But there have been a few clues indeed. I got a newsletter a week ago where Microsoft issued a new challenge on DVLUP that suggests making apps ready for Windows Phone 10 means at least porting them to Windows Phone 8.1:
https://www.dvlup.com/Challenge/c37655f6-1d31-4a67-aa20-dea314a7a03b
Also you can find this statement:
We’re more committed than ever to making sure that you can leverage your work to reach more customers, regardless of where they are, what device type they’re on, or what operating system they’re running. The best way to start preparing for Windows 10 is to start building universal Windows apps today for Windows 8.1.
http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2015/01/22/windows-10-is-empowering-developers-to-dream-again-3/
So with all this in mind Windows 10 seems to drop Silverlight for Windows Runtime (at least they are heavily promoting migrating apps there).
After upgrading my 830 to Windows 10 preview, it seems like even Windows phone 7 apps still work under Windows 10 for phone.
I still wonder how are they going to handle the different stores though.
Anyway, I got my answer.
Wait and see !
Am sure that a Windows Phone 8.1 silver light app would continue to run on Windows 10 Mobile you don't even need to upgrade to Windows 10 OS running Visual Studio 2015 to manage your app on Windows 10 Mobile you can continue to develop with the existing development environment(Windows 8.1 and VS 2013). For the query related to the store please follow the link Get ready for the Unified Dev Center dashboard preview and upcoming Store changes

Buliding Windows Phone 7 projects on Windows Server 2008

My company is planning on developing for Windows Phone 7. The build server we have, however runs Windows Server 2008. According to the Windows Phone SDK release notes I've read that only Windows Server is not supported for the SDK.
Does anyone have any experience on whether there's a possible workaround to have a Windows Server 2008 machine build Windows Phone 7 projects?
Update: I'm interested in building on a WS 2008 as we're talking about a project with a larger team where continous integration and centralized builds are essential. I'd be hoping we wouldn't have to set up an additional Windows 7 build server for this task.
Most the issues of this nature come into play meeting the emulator's requirements rather than the development tools.
With that said some are hacking around the walls put up to stop people going into the unsupported territory of WS2008.
Judging by your requirements I'd say dive in. If you have the option to test on device or in emulators in Win7, that will place you well.
This post likely of interest.
Aaron Stebner's WebLog : How to install the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Refresh on Windows Server 2008
If someone is interested here is instruction how to modify ISO image of the WinPhone 7.1 SDK for installing it on Windows Server. Basically it's the same Aaron Stebner solution, the only difference is that you need to modify it in the ISO image.

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