Windows Phone 8 development on Mac and VMWare, also using the Phone Emulator

Windows Phone 8 development on a Mac running OSX and VMWare, using also the phone emulator:

What is needed is a more recent Mac (MBP Early 2011, i7 in my case, OS X 10.7.5, 16GBytes RAM), VMware Fusion (in my case vers 5), Windows 8 OS (64-bit Pro version in my case), and the Windows Phone 8 SDK (the free Express version in my case).

A couple of configuration changes to the Windows 8 VM configuration are needed otherwise the Windows Phone emulator will not work.

1) Add (or cheek they are present) to .vmx file these rows:

hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = "FALSE"
mce.enable = "TRUE"
vhv.enable = "TRUE"

2) Settings -> CPU and memory -> Advanced: check "Enable hypervisor applications in this virtual machine"

3) Settings -> CPU and memory: make sure 2 Cores (or more?) are assigned to the Virutla machine

4) Settings -> Advanced: Preferred virtualizationn engine: Intel VT-x with EPT

After restarting Win 8 x64 VM, the HyperV system (and e.g. WIndows 8 Phone SKD debugging / Windows Phone Emulation) works perfectly.

I found these instructions from a posting by user JSaa (Credit to him!) at
[url]http://communities.vmware.com/thread/423744?tstart=0[/url]

Happy WP8 development on your Mac

Can I suggest that you add that to this wiki page on a new section? It seems a good addiction :)

If you prefer I can do it.

[url]http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Wiki/Windows_Phone_8_SDK_on_a_Virtual_Machine_with_Working_Emulator[/url]

[QUOTE=joaocardoso;906083]Can I suggest that you add that to this wiki page on a new section? It seems a good addiction :)

If you prefer I can do it.

[url]http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Wiki/Windows_Phone_8_SDK_on_a_Virtual_Machine_with_Working_Emulator[/url][/QUOTE]
Great idea. A unique article would also be fine, but cross link.

João Cardoso, I can not do this at the same level of detail as the instructions that are already on the referred page. If you have the time, please put the instructions for Mac users.

For information, if you are using Virtual Box on MAC to use Windows 8 VM for WP8 development purpose, the basic Virtual Box install does not work :-(
You must install Virtual Box update/plugins to make it works.

Installing Win 8 using Bootcamp is also a good option. It works perfectly fine for me with no issues faced so far.

Hello guys, please help me,

I don't know why windows phone 8 emulator can't run in my laptop. After installing the sdk, I got the message: "this computer does not support hardware virtualization, which means windows phone emulator 8.0 can't run on this pc".

this is my laptop specifications:
[QUOTE]
Processor : Intel<R> Core<TM>2 Duo CPU P7550 @ 2.26GHz
OS : Windows 8 Pro 64-bit
Memory : 2048MB RAM
[/QUOTE]

using coreinfo -v I got:
[QUOTE]
Coreinfo v3.2 - Dump information on system CPU and memory topology
Copyright (C) 2008-2012 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - [url]www.sysinternals.com[/url]

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P7550 @ 2.26GHz
Intel64 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10, GenuineIntel
HYPERVISOR - Hypervisor is present
VMX - Supports Intel hardware-assisted virtualization
EPT - Supports Intel extended page tables (SLAT)
[/QUOTE]

any solutions? please

Hello tirtox

Intel refers to SLAT technology as "EPT", and your processor does not support it
in coreinfo the symbols "-" refers to missing, and "*" to present
[QUOTE]HYPERVISOR [COLOR="#FF0000"]-[/COLOR] Hypervisor is present
VMX [COLOR="#FF0000"]-[/COLOR] Supports Intel hardware-assisted virtualization
EPT [COLOR="#FF0000"]-[/COLOR] Supports Intel extended page tables (SLAT) [/QUOTE]

as your console shows all these features are missing including the EPT which is mandatory for Hyper-V, you'll need a SLAT capable processor (and it's recommanded to have at least 4Gb memory)

One thing I found out is that EPT/SLAT is misreported if you have HyperV already installed and running. It will detect the Hypervisor corretcly but give you wrong information on EPT/SLAT. I would suggest checking the processor's documentation in any case.

As for Intel CPUs: all i3/i5/i7 CPUs do support it. Older CPUs don't.

Hi Loukt

Thanks very much for the knowledge. Well, is there any way(s) to go without buying a new machine/laptop? if there's no, could you please recommend me what the minimum specs (processor, vga, memory, etc.) are for the new machine/laptop? thanks in advance.

Hello,

I do remember that we discussed that in a thread on the forum but I can't find it only this one talking about the [URL="http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Discussion/showthread.php?238211-Windows-Phone-8-SDK-is-now-available-with-a-but"]sdk.[/URL].
If you're not able to buy a new machine, here is what you need :
- Windows 8 pro 64 Bits
- Visual Studio 2012 + WP8 SDK
- A WP8 device to test your apps (optionnal) since your processor isn't slat capable so you won't be able to run the emulator.

as of the recommanded configuration :
- i5 processor,
- 4 Gb Ram
- SSD drive, not mandatory but good to have !

My config ( i5 2430, 4Gb Ram, and a simple hard drive not SSD ) working great for me.

Hi Loukt,

Is it just fine if I make apps under windows phone OS 7.1 environment, but at the end later I deploy it to windows phone OS 8.0 device? thanks.

Loukt probably remembers this thread: [url]http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Discussion/showthread.php?239395-Dev-Machine[/url]

[QUOTE=tirtox;913695]Is it just fine if I make apps under windows phone OS 7.1 environment, but at the end later I deploy it to windows phone OS 8.0 device? thanks.[/QUOTE]It is possible, just you certainly can not use most WP8 features with this setup. Even the display resolution may bring some extra work: [url]http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Discussion/showthread.php?239431-XNA-games-for-WP-7-have-problems-on-some-WP8-resolution[/url]

[QUOTE=wizard_hu_;913719]Loukt probably remembers this thread: [url]http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Discussion/showthread.php?239395-Dev-Machine[/url][/QUOTE]
This is what I call magic ! thank you wizard_hu_
[QUOTE=tirtox;913695]Is it just fine if I make apps under windows phone OS 7.1 environment, but at the end later I deploy it to windows phone OS 8.0 device? thanks.[/QUOTE]
Deploying an app for WP7 will automatically make it available for WP8 devices, but as wizard_hu_ said, it will not benefit from all WP8 features.
You can make the app for wp7 and then upgrade a copy of the projet to WP8. and then you just publish the two xaps as an app.