How can I get WPF and Windows Phone templates in Expression Blend 2013?

Question

I have several installations of Visual Studio Express 2013 (Windows Phone, Windows Store and Desktop), but the only options that are there when creating a new project in Blend for Windows Store applications.

Opening a WPF solution in Blend that was created in Visual Studio 2013 just shows XAML and the design does not load or is missing.

I looked at the Blend installation directory and there are Silverlight and WPF templates in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Blend\ProjectTemplates\en\CSharp (although there are no templates for the Windows Store).

I tried to restore the Visual Studio Express desktop, but no luck.

This webpage implies the Blend for Visual Studio 2013 SDK for WPF , but I cannot find the download link for this. Another Stackoverflow column also mentioned that the templates will be available in Visual Studio Update 2, but I installed this and there are no additional templates.

Any idea how I can access the templates so that I can edit in Blend?

Answer 1

I found this on this link

 You can download Blend for Visual Studio 2013 with Visual Studio Express for Windows, Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone, and Visual Studio Professional 2013 and higher. 

Here I took a picture;

 So, when you download Visual Studio Express for Windows or Windows Phone, you get Blend for Visual Studio 2013 but for Windows (WinRT / Store) & Windows Phone. You don't get Blend for WPF or Sliverlight Applications. If you do want Blend for Visual Studio 2013 Full Edition, that you can get by downloading Visual Studio 2013 Professional or Higher. You can try Visual Studio 2013 Professional or Higher free for 90 Days. 

Here's a link; http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs#DownloadFamilies_2

Hope this helps you understand why you cannot see the designer in Blend 2013 when you open the WPF project created in Visual Studio 2013.