Developer Hub: Download Windows Phone Developer tools SDK 7.1 (Mango) beta & 7.0

Now you can download the new Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 (Mango) Beta can be used to develop Applications for both 7.0 and 7.1 version of Windows Phone OS releases.  You can experiment with the latest tools release for Windows Phone. WPDT 7.1 Beta provides the tooling necessary to target the upcoming Windows Phone OS release (codenamed “Mango”) in addition to productivity enhancements such as an app profiler and an improved emulator.

Although not required, the Windows Phone Developer Team strongly recommends that you install WPDT 7.1 Beta on a separate machine. Apps built for 7.0 by using the 7.1 beta tools should certify and behave similarly to those produced by your current WPDT environment, but these are beta tools and your apps may behave inconsistently. If you encounter an issue between the beta tools/emulator and production phones, please report the issue on the App Hub ‘tools for wp7’ forum.

The Windows Phone Developer Tools includes the following,

• Microsoft Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 (Beta)

• Windows Phone Emulator (Beta)

• Silverlight 4 SDK and DRT

• Microsoft XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh Windows Phone Extensions

• Microsoft Expression Blend SDK Preview for Windows Phone 7.1

• WCF Data Services Client for Window Phone 7.1

Please note:

1) Windows Server, Windows XP & Virtual machine platforms are not supported

2)  If you are installing Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows® Phone 7.1 alone, you can install it on any drive. If Visual Studio 2010 Professional or higher is already installed on your development computer, Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta is installed on the same drive as the existing Visual Studio installation.

3) If you just need WP 7.0 SDK, then you can Download the Windows Phone 7.0 SDK (Windows Phone Developer Tools), then download and install the Windows Phone Developer Tools January 2011 Update and the Windows Phone Developer Tools Fix. The January 2011 Update should only be applied after you’ve installed the Windows Phone Developer Tools.

Note: French, Italian, German, and Spanish versions of the tools are available at the Microsoft Download Center.

                                                                                                        blogged using my Windows Live Writer 2011…

Comprehensive guide: Windows Phone development resources

Looking for a comprehensive guide to development resources for Windows Phone? Visit the Windows Phone developer resources pages on App Hub.

Please find the following topic pages so you can learn everything you need to know to create great apps and games for Windows Phone:

Silverlight for Windows Phone

XNA Game Studio and XNA Framework

Windows Phone Developer Tools and Device Unlock

User Experience and User Interface

Application and Execution Model

Input, Touch and Gestures

Launchers and Choosers

Security

Frame and Page Navigation

Isolated Storage

Performance

Advertising Services

Camera and Photos

Media – Audio and Video

Push Notifications and Live Tiles

App Bar and Controls

Location and Mapping

Networking and Web Services

Sensors

Globalization and Localization

Porting Your App or Game to Windows Phone 7

Application Publishing and Marketplace

Book review: Programming Windows Phone 7

Are you the Windows Phone 7 developer or want to know how to create WP7 apps? Then this book is meant for you. To give you a sense of this offering, here is Charles’s Introduction—beneath that you’ll find the ebook’s full Table of Contents:

Introduction

This book is a gift from the Windows Phone 7 team at Microsoft to the programming community, and I am proud to have been a part of it. Within the pages that follow, I show you the basics of writing applications for Windows Phone 7 using the C# programming language with the Silverlight and XNA 2D frameworks.

Yes, Programming Windows Phone 7 is truly a free download, but for those readers who still love paper—as I certainly do—this book will also be available (for sale) divided into two fully-indexed print editions: Microsoft Silverlight Programming for Windows Phone 7 and Microsoft XNA Framework Programming for Windows Phone 7. ]

The best thing would be, with the money you’ve saved downloading this book, please buy other books. Despite the plethora of information available online, books are still the best way to learn about programming within a coherent and cohesive tutorial narrative. Every book sale brings a tear of joy to an author’s eye, so please help make them weep overflowing rivers.

In particular, you might want to buy other books to supplement the material in this book. For example, I barely mention Web services in this book, and that’s a serious deficiency because Web services are likely to become increasingly important in Windows Phone 7 applications. My coverage of XNA is limited to 2D graphics and while I hope to add several 3D chapters in the next edition of this book, I don’t really get into the whole Xbox LIVE community aspect of game development. Nor do I discuss any programming tools beyond Visual Studio—not even Expression Blend.

Sections:

This book is divided into three parts. The first part discusses basic concepts of Windows Phone 7 programming using example programs that target both Silverlight and the XNA framework. It is likely that many Windows Phone 7 developers will choose either one platform or the other, but I think it’s important for all developers who have at least a little knowledge of the alternative to their chosen path.

The second part of this book focuses entirely on Silverlight, and the third part on XNA 2D. For your convenience, the chapters in each part build upon previous knowledge in a progressive tutorial narrative, and hence are intended to be read sequentially.

To use this book properly you’ll need to download and install the Windows Phone Developer Tools, which includes Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, XNA Game Studio 4.0, and an on-screen Windows Phone Emulator to test your programs in the absence of an actual device. Get the latest information and downloads at http://developer.windowsphone.com.

PDF Download:BTW, you can download a PDF here (38.6 MB).

Code samples (C#): You can download the ebook’s C# sample code here (5.03 MB).

Code samples (VB.Net): And you can download the sample code in Visual Basic for Chapters 1-18 here (5.21 MB).

Nice way to start with! Wonderful book for the Windows Phone 7 programming!

Windows Phone 7: Visual Basic for Windows Phone Developer Tools – RTW

If you used CTP of Visual Basic for Windows Phone then today you can download the RTW version of the Visual Basic add-on from VB support for the Windows Phone developer tools. This release enables Visual Basic developers to create, build, release Silverlight applications and games for Windows Phone 7 using the final version of the Windows Phone Developer Tools.

It comes along with the official support for Visual Basic to Windows Phone. Also you can check out new VB versions of our released samples on MSDN.

For more information about this release, check out the following resources:

• The Visual Basic team’s blog
• Soma’s announcement of the release on his blog
• Jason Zander’s blog post on the release

Please note the following:

• This initial release of the Visual Basic add-on for the Windows Phone Developer Tools requires Visual Studio 2010 Professional or higher; Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone is not supported. If you do not have VS 2010 Pro or higher, you can download a trial version here.

• This release is only for Silverlight projects only; the Visual Basic add on for the Windows Phone Developer Tools does not support projects built on the XNA Framework.
• First install the System Requirements above, including Visual Studio 2010 Professional, Premium, or Ultimate and the Windows Phone Developer Tools RTW. Then click on VBWP7SetupENU.msi from the files in the download section above, to install the necessary components for Visual Basic.

Windows Phone 7: 80% increase in App developers

The developer community is placing some big bets with Windows Phone. How we can see that? Per WindowsPhone’s team blog we can notice nearly 80% increase in the number of registered developers since September, with more than 15,000 developers already signaling their intent to bring exciting content to Windows Phone. This is a great move.

In order to promote the efforts of developers, Windows Phone team assisting in the following ways:

1) Find Windows Phone 7 Apps & Games on Bing Visual Search
2) Promoting Windows Phone 7 Apps & Games on Xbox 360
3) Windows Phone 7 Apps & Games on Windowsphone.com
4) Campaigns featuring Windows Phone 7 Apps & Games
5) Windows Phone Marketplace on Zune PC software

With the international expansion of the Zune music and video service on Xbox LIVE, Windows PC and of course Windows Phone, the Zune PC software is now on more screens and in more markets than ever. In addition to the things we’re doing to promote apps and games for Windows Phone 7, we’ve added a few features that developers can use to better market their apps and games. Developers can take advantage of deep linking by installing the Download Now Kit.

This is just a sample of the type of work that we do to get apps and games in front of customers. You can expect more apps, contents in the Marketplace in forth coming days!!

Play Xbox & get 400 Microsoft Points FREE

Xbox has a great deal to help you you to kick off the holiday season. Just spend 1600 Microsoft Points on selected offerings from Microsoft Game Studios (see the list below) between November 16 – November 23 and receive 400 Microsoft Points–FREE!

For more information, See official rules

Offer Details

To qualify for this special offer, you must first register by downloading the Microsoft Game Studios Offer gamerpic, and then purchase the eligible Arcade games, game add-on, or avatar accessories from Xbox LIVE Marketplace using your Xbox LIVE account before November 23.

Gamertag Registration

To take advantage of this great deal, you must download the free Microsoft Game Studios Gamer Picture. You can queue this gamer pic up for download to your console right here:

1. Go to Xbox LIVE Event Registrations http://marketplace.xbox.com/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802475207f5/
2. Select Microsoft Game Studios Offer from the list and select Download to Xbox 360
3. Select Confirm
4. You’ll see a Congratulations! This item has been added to your download queue message.

You can also access the free gamer pic via the banner ads running on Xbox LIVE, or in the Gamer Picture section of the Xbox LIVE dashboard.

Download new adventures for favorites like Halo Wars.

You must register for the offer using the same Xbox LIVE gamertag that you will use for your purchase. This promotion starts at 01:01 P.M. (GMT +8) on November 16 and ends at 12:59 P.M. (GMT+8) on November 23, 2010.

 

Eligible Arcade Games	Eligible Game Add-ons	Eligible Avatar Items
Splosion Man South Park UNO Rush Perfect Dark Snoopy Flying Ace Defense Grid Magic the Gathering Banjo Kazooie Banjo Tooie Ikaruga Fable II Pub Games Braid A Kingdom for Keflings Rez HD The Maw Scrap Metal Alien Breed Episode 1 Alien Breed Episode 2 The Dishwasher Dead Samurai Duke Nukem 3D N+	Forza Motorsport 3 Mass Effect Fable II Halo 3 Halo Wars Gears of War 2 Alan Wake LIPS Crackdown Crackdown 2 Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts Scene It	Halo Reach Halo 3: ODST Halo 3 Gears of War 2 Gears of War 3 Crackdown 2 Fable II Fable III Perfect Dark Toy Soldiers

After registering and spending 1600 Microsoft Points on eligible downloads during the promotional period, the free Points will be either be deposited automatically into your Xbox LIVE account or sent to your e-mail via a token. Please allow four weeks for delivery, on or around December 20, 2010.

Kinect Pre-orders reach you tomorrow/today!!

Got to know from http://www.facebook.com/xbox360india.

Kinect Pre-orders reach you tomorrow/today (reason: blogging this late by a date)!!
W00t!
If you’ve pre-ordered before the 10th of Nov, stay by your door – Your Kinect arrives tomorrow/today!!

Live @ PDC 2010 – Real Games Analysis and Optimization of XNA Framework Games for Windows Phone

Just to update you that PDC 2010 is on, and you can watch it online (i am watching now 🙂 ). Right now I am attending Jeff’s Real Games Analysis and Optimization of XNA Framework Games for Windows Phone session. Earlier i watched Shawn Hargreaves’ session. If you’re a Windows Phone 7 app or games developer, then you have couple of sessions to watch out…

Streamed Sessions

Things I Wish I Knew Three Months Ago about Building Windows Phone 7 Applications

Jaime Rodriguez Thursday, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM (GMT-7) (Add to your calendar)

The Windows Phone clients for Twitter and Facebook are two new, native-looking Windows Phone applications. Come hear about all the lessons learned while developing these applications. Gain insights about the UX as well as development/architecture patterns for building great, well-behaved, native-looking Windows Phone 7 apps.

Optimizing Performance for Silverlight Windows Phone 7 Applications

Oren Nachman Thursday, 3:15 P.M. – 4:15 P.M. (GMT-7) (Add to your calendar)

Hear about the key tips, tricks, and common mistakes that we uncovered by analyzing several real world applications. See demos of how real apps are debugged. Also learn how to write world class applications with animations running at 60fps.

Things You Need to Know Before Building XNA Games for Windows Phone 7

Shawn Hargreaves Friday, 11:30 A.M. – 12:30 P.M. (GMT-7) (Add to your calendar)

So you have a cool idea for a game. This session covers some of the less obvious things you will need to know to turn your idea into reality when using XNA Game Studio for Windows Phone. Topics include how to choose the best orientation and resolution, how game content differs from typical productivity or web applications, how to deal with tombstoning, how to speed up load times, and how to proceed if you are interested in getting access to Xbox LIVE on the phone.

Real-World Analysis and Optimization of XNA Framework Games on Windows Phone 7

Jeff Petkau Friday, 2:00 P.M. – 3:00 P.M. (GMT-7) (Add to your calendar)

Good code design, performance tips, and a solid understanding of the platform are all essential to game development. Learn how to use the Microsoft Advanced Technology Group’s (ATG) battle-tested techniques to find and fix performance-killing issues in Windows Phone 7 XNA Framework game code. Also, hear about real-world analysis and optimization of XNA Framework games on Windows Phone 7.

3-Screen Coding: Sharing Code between Windows Phone, Silverlight, and .NET

Shawn Burke Thursday, 4:30 P.M. – 5:30 P.M. (GMT-7) (Add to your calendar)

Get a preview of upcoming Visual Studio features that will allow you to share code between Microsoft .NET platforms. You’ll learn how to structure applications to maximize the amount of shared code, how to write an app that’s used across Silverlight Desktop and Windows Phone, and how to build business logic and helper functions that work across all 3 screen types plus the cloud.

Building Windows Phone 7 applications with the Windows Azure Platform

Steve Marx Thursday, 11:30 A.M. – 12:30 P.M. (GMT-7) (Add to your calendar)

Learn how to build Windows Phone 7 applications that are backed by scalable cloud components hosted in Windows Azure. This demo-heavy session will cover best practices relating to communication, authentication, and data synchronization between phone applications and cloud components.

On Demand Sessions

The Rich Mobile Web – Today and Tomorrow

Joe Marini (On demand recording)

Learn how to plan and design for today’s – and tomorrow’s – Rich Mobile Web, whether you have an existing site that you want to get mobilized or are starting from scratch.

Making Money with the Windows Phone Marketplace

Karen Luk (On Demand recording)

In Windows Phone 7, Microsoft provides a central mechanism for distributing your application or game to all Windows Phone users: the Windows Phone Marketplace. In this session, we’ll review the high level workings of the Marketplace, but more importantly, we’ll drill deep into the functional criteria your application must meet, and the practices you should use in order to meet them.

You can get the full list from the client devices: http://player.microsoftpdc.com/Schedule/Filter/ClientDevices and the entire PDC 2010 available at http://player.microsoftpdc.com/Schedule/Sessions.

Enjoy the sessions!!

Microsoft Xbox: What else you can do more than playing games?

With Xbox LIVE, a whole world of extraordinary entertainment experiences awaits, including streaming music, HD movies, live sporting events, Facebook, Twitter, Video chat and more…

ESPN on Xbox 360:
With Kinect and ESPN you don’t just watch the game, you live the game. With thousands of sporting events and the interactive social network of Xbox LIVE, ESPN on Xbox 360 brings the excitement of a stadium experience into your living room…

Friends and family:
Video Kinect™ lets you connect with family and friends from the comfort of your living room. The Kinect camera captures a full room view and even automatically zooms to capture everyone in the room. Connect with friends on Windows Live Messenger or chat from one Xbox 360 to another…

Bring your gamer friends with you wherever you go. With Xbox LIVE and Windows Phone 7, you can see who’s online and what your friends are doing on their consoles, PCs, or Windows 7 phones

Learn more about this…

 

Movies and music:
Listen to music, watch a film or TV show, connect with your friends in real-time. Zune on Xbox 360 delivers HD movies in the clearest, eye-popping instant-on 1080p. You can access your favorite music and buy music videos too… Learn more about this…

Windows Phone 7:
Game on the go and connect with friends wherever you are. Access your Xbox LIVE account right from your Windows Phone 7 and see what your friends are up to on Xbox LIVE. Add some edge to your gaming repertoire with mobile tips and tricks, track your gamer score, or deck out your avatar with the latest duds. Also stay in the game with the only phone with Xbox LIVE built in. Whether you’re waiting for the bus, traveling out of town, or just kicking back around the house, Windows Phone 7 and Xbox LIVE will keep your life in motion and put mobile gaming

Streaming music:
Bring a party to life with Last.fm and listen to the world’s largest online music catalog – including all your favorite songs – on your Xbox 360. Discover tons of new music and listen to personalized radio stations powered by millions of music fans. Learn more about this…

Use your voice:
Kinect uses advanced entertainment technology to respond to the sound of your voice. Just say “Xbox” to reveal a series of voice commands. So you’ll be able to control HD movies with the sound of your voice—no remote required

Download : Windows Phone Developer Tools RTW

The Windows Phone team released the final bits for Windows Phone 7 – Developer Tools released to web (RTW). The tooling is free and will integrate with Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Blend 4 if you have them installed as well. This is the same powerful and easy to use Visual Studio integrated developer environment (IDE) handles developing Windows Phone 7 phone applications.

The Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools package includes everything you need to write awesome applications and games for Windows Phone 7.  All of the tools included in it are absolutely free. But make sure that you’ll need to uninstall the beta version before installing the RTW version.

The Windows Phone Developer Tools includes the following:

• Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone – Free Edition of Visual Studio 2010 for development
• Windows Phone Emulator Resources – Hardware accelerated emulator to run and debug your apps without requiring WP7 device
• Silverlight 4 Tools For Visual Studio – for building great applications for WP7
• XNA Game Studio 4.0 – to build great 2D and 3D games for WP7
• Microsoft Expression Blend for Windows Phone – Free version of Blend for Windows Phone 7 development
• Phone Registration Tool – When you get a device, this allows you to “unlock” the device so you can run/debug your application on it, using your Marketplace account.

So why don’t you wait? You can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=04704acf-a63a-4f97-952c-8b51b34b00ce.

The best part is all of the above tools and frameworks are packaged into one setup.  If you already have Visual Studio 2010, the setup will also add support for Windows Phone 7 development and projects to your full Visual Studio 2010.

Also applications and games you build with the tools released today can be uploaded to the Windows Phone Marketplace – which enables any phone consumer to easily download and purchase them directly from their phone.  This provides a great way to distribute applications/games that you either get paid for or distribute for free. Install the above developer tools, try building new WP7 apps and don’t forget to keep them in Windows Phone Marketplace.

Nice way to start building WP7 apps!!

Download : Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta 1.0

The same powerful and easy to use Visual Studio integrated developer environment (IDE) handles design and testing of Windows Phone 7 phone applications. You can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c8496c2a-54d9-4b11-9491-a1bfaf32f2e3&displaylang=en.

It includes the following:

• Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone Beta
• Windows Phone Emulator Beta
• Silverlight for Windows Phone Beta
• Microsoft Expression Blend for Windows Phone Beta
• XNA Game Studio 4.0 Beta

Developer Hub : Windows Phone 7 Jump Start training

With continuation to my previous blog post (Windows Phone 7 Design and Development), i am adding couple of sessions, and a link to their course material. 

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Session 1 of 12): Introduction

A quick tour of Windows Phone 7 and how you write programs for it. We take a look at the platform capabilities and the software development options. We also offer you a chance to win a prize that is almost certainly not a private jet.

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Session 2 of 12): Building a Silverlight Application, Part 1

Building an application from scratch. How you can take a simple idea for a program and build the user interface, followed by the program behaviours that sit behind it. We take a look at data binding on Windows Phone and how best to structure your application to make best use of it.

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Session 3 of 12): Building a Silverlight Application, Part 2

Making more complex applications. You also get an overview of how the built in controls work, and how to tailor the user input to match your requirements. We also take a look at page navigation within a multi-form Silverlight application on the phone and how to use the navigation inputs for best effect.

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Session 4 of 12): Building Games for the Windows Phone 7 Platform

Using Silverlight as a platform for game creation. We show how to get a draw/update behavior into your Silverlight games and give you a fully worked game to chew on. We also illustrate how a Silverlight game can leverage the XNA libraries to add sound effects to a game.

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Session 5 of 12): Building XNA Games for the Windows Phone 7 Platform, Part 1

Getting Started with  XNA on Windows Phone. We talk about what makes the Windows Phone such a good platform for XNA development and how you create XNA games for it. We take a look at how games can manage the orientation of a phone and give you some tips on getting the best performance. Then we move on to take a look at the accelerometer input and how to make games that use this.

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Session 6 of 12): Building XNA Games for the Windows Phone 7 Platform, Part 2

Using the Windows Phone platform features in your XNA games. We continue with our look at Windows Phone features that make the platform so interesting to game developers. We cover the use of the touch screen, sound creation and finally give you some coverage of how to access the Zune media content in the device. Then we round off with a little look at how you can get text input from users by means of the Guide support in XNA.

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Session 7 of 12): Advanced Application Development, Part 1

Application Lifecycle. A look at the execution model on the phone, and how to create solutions that give a great user experience in the face of phone calls, termination and even total shutdown of the device itself. We show how to respond to messages to make your application give the appearance of being "always on" and the data persistence facilities that you will need to make this work.

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Session 8 of 12): Advanced Application Development, Part 2

Launchers and Choosers plus Using Isolated Storage. In this session we take a look at "Launchers and Choosers", how your application can use the built in phone behaviors to place calls, take pictures and select contacts, making it part of how the phone works. We also show how your application can store data in its own isolated storage on the phone device.

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Session 9 of 12): Advanced Application Development, Part 3

Storing Data and Using the Network. In this session we look at the connectedness of Windows Phone and how you can make this work for you. We demonstrate connected applications and how the notification service is used to allow external systems to give your application a wake-up call.

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Session 10 of 12): Marketing Your Windows Phone 7 Application

Using Windows Marketplace. In this session we explain how to join the Marketplace and get your applications out there. We take a look at how your solutions are packaged and deployed and how you go about registering a device for development and then using that with Visual Studio 2010 to test your applications.

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Session 11 of 12): Working with Media

Using XNA in 3D and with Media. In this session we take a quick look at how the Windows Phone works as an excellent platform for 3D games in XNA. We also explore how an XNA game can make use of the media stored in the phone, including photographs taken by the user and media loaded onto it from Zune.

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Session 12 of 12): Final Silverlight Topics and Wrap-Up

Taking Silverlight to the max. We start with a look at the Application bar, a crucial component in Windows Phone applications. We then move on to the Expression Blend tool, and how to create compelling user experiences with it. Finally we round off the session by showing how easy it is to use the map services in your phone and demonstrate some of the really cool navigation tools that are coming.

Bonus:
======
* If you’re a Zune user, here’s a link to the Zune subscription link. 
* Also a link to the iTunes subscription.

… watch out this space…i will keep you posted more on this…