Windows Phone 8 Applications Using Visual Studio 2013 Professional

Question

Confused Upgrading Visual Studio 2010 to 2012/2013.

2013 is the only option for building apps for the Windows store. But it does not give a clear image of support for developing applications for Windows Phone.

My question is: can I use VS2013 to develop applications for Windows Phone 8?

Not sure if Windows 8.1 is also available on phones or not, if I go to VS2013, can I create an application for Windows Phone 8?

Answer 1

This question is a duplicate of the Windows Phone 8 template in Visual Studio 2013 Preview , but since I have no reputation to post a comment, I will combine JP Hellemons Answer and my own answer to this specific question.

The Windows Phone SDK 8.0 is only integrated in Visual Studio 2012, even when Visual Studio 2013 is installed. To install the SDK for VS2012, we must indicate this during the initial installation of Visual Studio or do it later by changing the installation using Control Panel → Add or remove programs .

Answer 2

Windows 8 (aka Metro) and Windows Phone are two different platforms. There are some suggestions that the platforms will eventually converge, but we are not there yet.

To start development for Windows Phone, you need to install the Windows Phone SDK . Unless you're using Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate, which supposedly comes with a pre-installed WP SDK.