Windows Phone 7 Development
Tutorial 1 – Getting started
Ok, most of you who are reading this blog might know that the Windows Phone 7 is on the way. During The Mix 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada, Microsoft annouced that the tools that you need to develop on the Windows Phone 7(WP7) is free and available for download already now!
So this is my new tutorial series that I have been waiting a long time to write. This series will cover everything you need to create kick ass games on the new Microsoft Phone platform.
Windows Phone 7 development is quite easy as it builds on already existing technology; XNA and Silverlight.
If you are creating 3D games, or 2D games that will use a lot of sprite rendering, XNA is the weapon of choice. If you are wiriting business applications, or simple 2D games, Silverlight is the way to go.
As my blog is mostly about game programming, and I’m XNA/DirectX MVP, my natural choice in this tutorial is to use XNA for WP7 development.
So this first part of this tutorial series is how you can get started, get everything you need installed and running your first WP7 application.
Let’s get started! 🙂
Step 1 – Downloading the installer
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click download on the VM_BOOT\vm_web.exe file and run the file.
Step 2 – Installing the Windows Phone Developer Tools
When you run the file, the first thing that appears is the agreement screen. Read this and click the Accept button( if you accept the agreement ) to be taken to the next step.
The next step is where you start installing the application. Click the "Install Now" button and it will start downloading the tools, and install it to your computer.
Or, if you need to customize the installation, click the "Customize" button. This let’s you specify the path of where you want the tools installed on your HDD. Now click the Install button to start the installer!
Note: The download is a >300MB download, and the installer might ask you to reboot your computer during the installation, so pay some attention once the download is complete!
Once the installer completes, the installation complete screen will display. From here, you can either close the installer, or start the application. Click the "" button to load Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone.
Step 4 – Running the tool
Once the installer is complete, you can run it from the tool like we did in the previous step. You can also start the tool by running the exe file, or use the start menu. The application is installed under the "XNA Game Studio 4.0" folder.
Step 5 – Creating a new Windows Phone project
Once Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone is running, you can create new projects, or open existing ones. In this tutorial, we will create a new project.
This can be done by clicking the "New Project" button, or by clicking File->New Project.
From here you can select what template you want the new project to use. On the left side of the screen, under Visual C#, click "XNA Game Studio 4.0" to display all Windows Phone projects related to XNA Game Studio 4.0.
Select the Windows Phone Game (4.0), give it a name and a path to where you want the project to be installed before clicking "OK".
Now, you got a new XNA Game Studio 4.0 Windows Phone project created in Visual Studio 2010.
Step 6 – Running your first WP7 game
Now, you got the default new project code generated. This code includes everything you need to run you first Windows Phone 7 game! So all you got to do is to press F5 to compile, build and run you game.
Congratulations on creating and running your first WP7 "game".
Modern art using the GPU 