Is it possible to run the Windows Phone 8 simulator directly in OS X? - macos

I'd like to test web sites in Mobile IE. I do not need or want Windows 8 loaded, just Windows Phone 8.
I understand I can run Windows Phone 8 Simulator inside a Windows 8 VM. That is not my question.
I understand Windows Phone 8 Simulator is an x86 build of Windows Phone 8. This should, theoretically, make it easier to launch on an x86 Mac within an x86 based virtualization environment.
Can I run Windows Phone 8 on Mac, directly?

Yes, the Windows Phone 8 Simulator / Windows Phone 8 Emulator can run directly in OS X. However the mouse cursor is not visible. Mouse works, but no cursor/circle to show where your pointer is, which makes the VM difficult to use. Windows Phone 8 Simulator does the same thing on Windows when launched in Hyper V Manager (rather than Visual Studio). This may change in future.
Keyboard support is fine.
I used VMware Fusion 6.01 / OS X Mavericks.
Get the Flash.vhd file from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v8.0\Emulation\Images\Flash.vhd inside Windows 8, and copy it to OS X (I used VMware Fusions Sharing feature to set this up quickly)
Import the VM into VMware Fusion
Change the CPU and Memory setting to a minimum of 2 cores, 512 MB (Windows Phone 8's mimum requirement). Before I did this, Windows Phone 8 would pause at the boot screen.
Windows Phone 8 will launch.
Keyboard shortcuts are listed at MSDN. Remember to press Fn on your Mac for function keys.

As you don't want to run Windows 8, the response is no, you can't run the emulator directly from Mac OSX. Also the emulator is x64 so you need to have a Windows 8 Pro at least, with HyperV enabled and a CPU SLAT capable.
If you consider the unique option: run Windows 8, you need to verify your processor is SLAT compatible. you can made this going to this page. and searching for your CPU model, in the Advanced technologies section you need to look for Intel VTx and EPT support. If both are supported, you should be able to run windows phone 8 from a Windows 8 machine.

Related

Windows 8 emulator on windows 7?

By building my android aplication on phonegap for windows 8 i got a .xap file. Now am not having windows 8 pc or windows 8 phone. I want to test my xap file, so what can i do now? Is that possible to run the xap file on windows 7 if so how ? I tried by installing windows software development kit but i couldnt find any emulator. Is there any other way to run the application on windows 7 desktop ?
No, there's no emulator for Windows 8 on Windows 7.
Your best bet would be virtual machine. Two most popular options are VirtualBox and VMware. You can run virtual PC and install Windows 8 on it (you'd need a Windows 8 installation though).
Microsoft released new virtual images with different Operating Systems and Browsers on modern.ie. On the right side of the page you'll find different virtualization options as well as download links to different images. You can download and use these images without having to worry about buying any license, getting the system installed, etc. (they're time limited, but you can just reset your virtual machine at will).

Didn't find windows phone 8 emulator

I installed Visual Studio 2012 and Windows Phone 8 SDK successfully. I created a new phone app and trying to run but it doesn't show me any emulators in Visual Studio 2012.
Make sure that your PC satisfies the system requirements for running the emulator:
Windows 8 Pro edition or greater
A processor that supports Second
Level Address Translation (SLAT)
If your computer meets the hardware and operating system requirements,
but does not meet the requirements for the Windows Phone 8 Emulator,
the Windows Phone SDK 8.0 will install and run. However, the Windows
Phone 8 Emulator will not function and you will not be able to deploy
or test apps on the Windows Phone 8 Emulator.
Source
Pretty much #Olivier's answer. Also, make sure you have Hyper-V enabled on your computer.
In lieu of this, There's a very nice tool on codeplex that pretty much checks if your computer is able to start hyper-v and the windows phone emulator.
If that passes, you'll want to follow this article in order to get hyper-v set up. Specifically the two enabling sections.
There was a post a little while back on what is required specifically here on stack overflow. It can be found here

Scope of an older version window app

I have created an app(.exe) using Win32 for window's older versions(xp,7).
But now i am having a silly doubt regarding the running environment of the app. Actually i would like to know whether i can run my app(.exe) in Windows 8 or not, which is going to be the latest version (Licensed version) of windows .
I would also like to know whether Windows 8 desktop apps will run on windows8 Phone/Tablet or not.
There are several flavors of Windows in the market and coming to the market in the fall:
Windows 7 - The 'classic' Windows; in the sense that it is a desktop OS with a Start Menu in the lower left. It runs on x86 and x64 based machines and supports Win32 based applications.
Windows 8 - The next version of Windows. It runs on x86 and x64 based machines and supports BOTH Win32 and Windows Store applications. If your application runs on Windows 7 then it should run without changes or issues on Windows 8. Windows 8 will be available on Desktops, Laptops and Tablets.
Windows RT - A version of Windows 8 targeting ARM based machines. It supports ONLY Windows store application. Windows RT will be available in both Laptop and Tablet form factors.
Windows Phone 7 - This is the current Phone platform and runs a customized version of Silverlight. It will only run applications built for Windows Phone 7.
Windows Phone 8 - This is the next version of the Phone platform. It is based on the same kernel as Windows RT. There is however very little information regarding the development model at this time. It will however run both Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 applications.
Your app(.exe) may be capable of running on Windows 8 in desktop mode. If it runs on Win7 then it should be fine but you'll need to test it. It won't run on WindowsRT devices (the ones which only run the "what-used-to-be-called-metro-style" apps).
Not that some tablet devices will have the ability to run desktop apps but some won't. It's not cut and dried.
Windows 8 apps of any sort will not run directly on Windows Phone (7 or 8).

How to run Windows Phone emulator in VMware

I'm trying to make a simple Windows Phone application on a Macbook Pro. So I'm running Visual Studio in Windows 7 inside of VMware Fusion.
When I try to run the phone emulator, this is what I get.
I looked for settings that I could modify to the virtual machine settings but didn't find any.
Unfortunately this technique will probably not work for you. I had the same issue when I was on my PC and wanted to create iPhone applications. VMWare (and other Virtual Machines) are not fully gfx enabled. You need to check the box that says "Accelerate 3D graphics
What I would suggest is to install Windows 7 on your Mac using BootCamp.

Windows phone 7 takes forever to deploy

I'm playing around with windows phone 7 development, when I press F5 Visual studio takes forever to deploy the app, I get
Window Phone Emulator is doing complete OS boot.
What would be the problem?
PS: I'm using windows 7 on Mac with Parallels Desktop
The emulator isn't supported running inside or side by side other VM's at this stage. It is implemented as a VM itself. VM's running on windows platforms will be detected by the emulator startup and a specific error message provided. I've noticed several people having the same issue from Parallels on Mac ... presumably the VM detection doesn't work over there to stop the attempt.
System requirements documented here and here for your reference.
Similar to how we have to run a Mac to develop for iPhone without hassles, you'll need to run a PC to develop for Windows Phone 7 - at least for now.
You may also find your issue with the WIndows Phone Emulator is because the Emulator actually the real phone ROM running in a Virtual Machine.
Since your situation is a VM (Windows 7 on Parellels on Mac) this may explain your performance issue. Developers using VMWare have had similar issues plus Virtual PC / Hyper-V does not support Windows Phone 7 at all.
Running virtual machines on virtual machines is a massive performance hit, your only solution may be a cheap PC installation of Windows Phone 7 tools etc on compatible hardware ie Graphics Card / with WDDM 1.1 compatible drivers etc.
For my WP8 deployment, I notice that disconnecting my MacBook Air from the power source will slow the deployment down considerably (so will the debugging and tracing).
Simply plug the laptop back to the power source and everything will become fast again.
Don't kill the emulator between debug sessions. There is no need.
Also - Visual Studio 2010 Express For Windows Phone, which is installed with the tools, is much more responsive as it has less features running.
So if speed is really an issue, that may be an option.

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