Windows Phone 8 Emulator runs as a virtual machine on Hyper-V

WP Central

Since nosotros've been digging effectually the leaked Windows Phone 8 SDK some of our more than eager readers have noticed that there are some fairly restrictive requirements to fulfil in order to go the Windows Phone 8 emulator running.

We've read through the SDK documentation in detail and spent a petty bit of time agreement the hardware and software requirements and have put together a piddling guide then that developers can check if their system will be ready to run the emulator, or if information technology'south fourth dimension for an upgrade.

Total disclaimer here: I am non an skillful on virtualisation, if you spot what you lot believe to exist an fault in the below, go far touch.

The Windows Phone 8 emulator is a footling more complex than the Windows Telephone vii emulator, running as a virtual car on Hyper-5, a new virtualisation technology available in Windows viii (and Windows Server 2008). I won't go into too much detail virtually Hyper-V as a Microsoft product, you tin can find out more information hither, but an important requirement to note is that you will need a 64 chip processor.

The Windows Phone 8 SDK

From Windows eight it'due south like shooting fish in a barrel enough to install Hyper-V, it is just added as a feature from the control panel, but first we have to ensure that we accept the correct hardware.

Hyper-5 on Windows eight requires that your BIOS supports Hardware-assisted virtualisation, 2d Level Address Translation (SLAT), and Hardware-based Information Execution Prevention (DEP). If that last sentence is another language to you, fear not, as Microsoft has a simple tool chosen 'Coreinfo' that volition tell yous if your system is gear up. Follow the steps below to cheque your PC.Edit:As pointed out in our comments SLAT is only required when using Hyper-5 with Windows viii, non for it'southward server analogue.

Download the Coreinfo tool hither from Microsoft, and extract the contents of the .naught file to the root of your C:\ drive.
Launch a control prompt window (type 'cmd' into First if you're not certain how to do that)
Change the directory of your command prompt to C: by typing 'cd \' and hitting the return key
Blazon 'Coreinfo.exe –v' into the command prompt and hitting return
You will at present see a tabled output similar to the screenshot below, which shows the data from my system.

coreinfo -v

Look for the 'SVM' row in the table, if you see an asterisk (*) next to it as in my screenshot, your system supports hardware-assisted virtualisation
Look for the 'NP' row in the table, if you see an asterisk next to it, your processor supports SLAT, if you see a '-' like in my screenshot, it does not.
Adjacent type 'Coreinfo.exe' into the command prompt and hit return
This volition give a much more detailed output, you need to find 'NX' in the left hand column and check for an asterisk next to it to confirm that your system supports Data Execution Prevention (I've highlighted the row in my screenshot below).

coreinfo

And so in my case, I need to replace my crumbling processor when I upgrade to a Windows 8 car if I want to be able to run the Windows Phone 8 emulator. If my research is right, all Intel i3, i5 and i7 processors or after back up SLAT, or if you prefer AMD, the Phenom family and to a higher place volition meet requirements.

Of course bear in mind that this does not mean you cannot develop for Windows Phone viii if you don't encounter the hardware requirements, there is nothing to finish yous connecting a Windows Phone 8 device to your PC and deploying your apps directly to that.

Thank you to Ignacio Raffa (blog) and @robertmclaws for the emulator images

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