Recently Microsoft announced ability to create universal applications in Visual Studio 2013. Is there any easy way to convert existing Windows Phone 8 application into universal or i have to create new project and properly move the code manually?
It is not about converting a project type or moving code. You will have to port your app from one runtime to another. This is because the Universal project templates use the Windows Runtime APIs where as your existing Windows Phone 8 application uses the Silverlight APIs.
Windows Phone Store apps use the same app model and UI framework as Windows Store apps do, and they use the Windows versions of common features such as background tasks. You will still be able to reuse a lot of your existing code, but these differences mean that it really is a porting exercise, more than just an update, to move a Windows Phone 8 to the new app model.
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There are some features that are available in Windows Phone 8 for which there is no Windows Phone Store (Universal apps) equivalent. See more here.
The right-menu option is "Add Windows 8.1...". That will add Windows 8.1 support and add a Shared section to both projects so you can share code between then.
In your solution, right click your Windows Phone application and select "Add Windows 8.1..." and follow the prompts.
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As part of an internship project, I am looking to deploy an application on PC (Windows 10) as well as on mobile digital media such as tablets.
I have some programming knowledge in VB.Net and have the Visual Basic 2010 Express IDE. Is a Windows Forms Application executable on Windows 10 tablets? If yes, are there compatibility issues (e.g. tactile events)? I am looking for the most suitable equipment for daily use for production monitoring operations. All the devices must have access to the same database to draw up daily reports from a master tool (a PC).
Is a Windows Forms Application executable on Windows 10 tablets?
Yes, Windows 10 tablets are able to run traditional Win32/.NET desktop applications. Please refer to the following article for more information about this: https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-arm-not-windows-rt.
As mentioned in the comments, you should be aware of the fact that tablet users may excpect a more touch friendly UI compared to what a traditional Windows Forms application may offer by default though.
If you intend to target only Windows 10+, you might want to to take a look at the Universal Windows Platform (UWP).
I just need to know if I need the same framework to develop an app for Windows 8 for Tablets (Windows RT) and PCs or the tablet one still uses .NET compact framework.
The only type of applications that run on Windows RT (ie. the Tablet/ARM version of Windows 8) are Windows Store Apps. These are full-screen applications that run on top of the WinRT API.
You can use a subset of .NET 4.5 on these devices, and use XAML to build your interface just like you would with WPF on the desktop.
You can read more on MSDN - .NET for Windows Store apps overview. This article describes a lot of the changes between the main version of .NET and the Windows RT subset that's available to you. Generally, Windows.Runtime will provide alternatives to some of the .NET methods that no longer exist.
http://www.infragistics.com/community/blogs/nick-landry/archive/2012/06/19/developing-apps-for-microsoft-surface-windows-8-windows-rt-and-windows-phone.aspx
here are all the info about that
As for the .Net compatibility, the .NET for Windows Store apps link states that the a lighter version of the .Net Framework (aptly called ".NET for Windows Store apps") will be available in Windows RT and so the available APIs too will be a subset of those available in the Full Desktop Version of the Framework. Eg. In Windows RT, Windows Forms will not be availble.
You can also create a Portable Class Library project to develop a .NET Framework library that can be used from a Windows Store app. The project must include .NET for Windows Store apps as one of the target platforms. This is useful when you want to build functionality that can be used from apps for different platforms, like Windows Phone app, desktop app, and Windows Store app.
Dev Center - Windows Store apps is the best (and official) place to get started.
In my company we have an existing product that runs on Windows 7 and communicates with our web services.
We wish to make a Windows 8 tablet version of our product, and my first thought was:
"Hey, its just a new Windows version, so we can probably use our existing model, data access and business layer logic projects, and just focus on making a new UI layer"
But I fear that this is not the case, or am I wrong?
I tried opening our VS2010 solution file in VS2012 Express, but received an error "This edition of Visual Studio only supports Windows Store apps".
So, my naive hope now is: Can anyone tell me the easiest way to make our existing code work in a Windows 8 App?
EDIT:
The code is .NET C#, and my thought was that I just wanted to make a Windows 8 app so that the product had a tablet/touch friendly interface.
In general, you'll make a new UI using XAML, reuse a lot of your existing code, and change the data access to use SQLite.
VS2012 Express Edition is for making Windows Store apps. By "Windows Store" app, I mean an app which uses the WinRT APIs. Depending on your code, making a Windows Store version of your app can be straightforward.
If you need other features, you might need a different version of Visual Studio 2012. You definitely need to be on 2012 though. You can't build a Windows Store application with Visual Studio 2010. I think you know this already though.
If your existing .NET app uses WPF for the UI, you can reuse a lot of your XAML knowledge for the Windows 8 port. It's not as simple as recompiling, but it should be straightforward.
SQL CE is currently not an option for Windows Store applications. Instead, consider using SQLite.
Take a look at a post on MSDN called .NET for Windows Store apps - supported APIs. Some APIs you may be familiar with have been moved to WinRT. Sometimes porting is as simple as changing namespaces.
You mention that you also write to the C: drive. There's a sample on MSDN on how to read and write files.
So You need to build a new Metro Style Interface.
Wen You built interface just copy the Logic of your old application.
You can open old application in old VS 2010 and copy code line by line.
You can't convert old Windows app to Metro Style App.
I ported my windows phone7 application to windows 8(just copy paste the xaml and c# code in visual studio 2012->new->project->WPFApplication) and made changes in UI sizes.The problem is the .exe file(after building wpf application) runs only in the system with .NET framework installed.I want to run my application in all system running windows(7(32/64),xp,vista).I am newbie to windows application basically wp7 developer.Thank u.
If you really want to port a windos phone 7 app to windows 8, You should go through the following resources. They provide most of the information.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465136.aspx
http://leventoz.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/moving-a-windows-phone-app-to-windows-8-a-case-study-part-1/
http://leventoz.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/moving-a-windows-phone-app-to-windows-8-a-case-study-part-2/
WPF is a part of the .NET framework, so you can't write a WPF application that can run without the framework on the machine.
If you want to create a binary that run on the classic windows runtime you can't use WPF/C#/VB etc.
Best thing if you want to port your Windows Phone app to Windows 8 is to create a Microsoft Store app, File > New Project > Blank App in VS2012. The app won't run on anything except Windows 8 but the Microsoft Store for Windows 8 is probably the best place to have your app if it's ported from Windows Phone.
Migrating application to WP7 is not that easy as it sounds. There is lot of different APIs and also limited async/await in WP7 when using this extension.
I would probably recommend starting with this MSDN article. It describes basic problems and challenges and also contains useful namespace and API mapping:
Migrate/port a Windows Phone 7 app to a Windows Store app
As Microsoft said that windows 8 and windows phone 8 share the same code base. If I use visual studio 2012 RC write an application for windows 8. I want to know whether I can install and run the same application on windows phone 8?
If the answer is yes we can prepare ourselves for windows phone 8 SDK by learning Visual Studio 2012 RC for windows 8 today!
Right now they haven't announced everything, so this is just my speculation.
I guess that you will not be able deploy the same app (xap file) to WP8 and Windows 8. This by design. Why? Because they are very different systems. Your beautiful, fast and awesome Windows Phone app will suck on Windows 8. There is no silver bullet. It's the same for HTML. You have to create separate mobile version of the web app, otherwise nobody will use it.
They share the same kernel and probably plenty of APIs. But that doesn't mean the runtime environment in which your applications run is the same. E.g. very different form factors make it necessary to adapt the app anyway. Since they never said that Windows Phone 8 has the same application programming model as Windows 8 you can at the moment safely expect not to be able to deploy the same app to both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.
That being said, you probably can expect to share a lot of code between both systems, especially if you're using either C# or C++ (with native apps coming to WP8 too).
Application compiled for WP8 won't just run on Windows 8, but you can share lot of code into common libraries.
There is a chapter in Windows Phone 8 SDK about targeting both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 development. Mostly is possible either by Portable Class Libraries, referencing common files both in W8 and WP8 projects or using Windows Runtime Components.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35471
Many Application designed for wp8 work on windows8 also as The developer have also to decide whether it will work in both of then,usually windows8 has not enough graphic and motion control so some WP games do not run on windows8,, You can always see any app permission notice to understand whether it work on wp8 or not on other hand there were also some windows game that has as much graphics that WP could not run,,
Like if you want game like assassins creed it will run on both operating system(WP,window) but in different manner
So it's chooses by game properties that define cap package to run or not