I realize I’m jumping ahead a bit, but has anyone attempted to run CoronaCards through Virtual Studio on the Windows 10 Technical Preview?
Nope. Not I but that is a very good question.
Personally if you are using visual studio 2013, I don’t really see how that would be an issue because it is running inside the VS 2013 simulator.
Larry
Agreed Larry. I will be using VS 2013 (Community; not trying to shell out right now), so we’ll see how it goes. The move to Win10 was error-free to Microsoft’s credit. I did not expect that.
I’ll report back with any hiccups or updates as I move through the process. If anyone has any questions or would like me to test something out with CoronaCards on WP development with Win10, post here and I’ll get it added to the list.
@Alex, the Corona University videos we did all used Windows 10 Technical Preview.
http://coronalabs.com/resources/tutorials/coronacards-enterprise/
Not sure how long the Preview will last, but it works great as a way to set up a “no cost” development environment.
@Charles, I didn’t realize that the videos were made on Win10. That is good to know. Now I just need to get my bitmap font functionality implemented and I’ll be golden. Having the Win8 box seems to be the only hurdle (performance issues notwithstanding) to WP development, and with mine out of commission this is a suitable substitute.
FWIW the artist I’m working with tells me half of his home country of Italy is using WP. Anecdotal to be sure, but we need to remember that WP is still being used by people all over the world. Get a large following in Belgium and that makes a big difference.
Well, I hit the first hiccup: Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service seems to be either be missing or disabled on my Win10 box, as I am not able to debug on an emulated device. Virtual Studio keeps telling me that I need Windows 8 Professional.
I can bring up my services window, but I can’t click on anything within it. @Charles, did you encounter this issue?
Upon further inspection this appears to be an issue with my model of laptop. We’ll see if the tips scrawled on the inside of this bathroom stall help me out.
Alex, Microsoft document’s the minimum system requirements for the WP8 emulator here…
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/ff626524(v=vs.105).aspx
To summarize:
1) You need to run a 64-bit Windows operating system.
2) Your CPU must support a hardware feature known as SLAT. (aka: “Extended Page Tables” on Intel; aka: “Nested Page Tables” on AMD.)
3) You should also have at least 4 GB of RAM.
I suspect #2 up above is the problem. Your CPU might not support SLAT. Microsoft provides instructions via the link below on how to enable SLAT in the BIOS. They also provide a downloadable command line tool to identify if your hardware supports it too.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/jj863509(v=vs.105).aspx
You can also purchase a WP8 device without a contract for cheap on Amazon. For example, I’ve found a Nokia Lumia 520 (no contract) for $40 on Amazon here…
Oh and based on the statistics that I’ve seen, that Lumia 520 is currently the most popular WP8 device. Low-end, low-resolution, low-memory WP8 devices are the most popular WP8 devices, so, it would be good to test on them. Especially to make sure that you’re not exceeding the max memory limit for you app (worst case is 150 MB) and to ensure that your app performs well on low-end CPUs.
And in case you’re interested, I usually go to AdDuplex’s blog (link below) to see what the current WP8 model and OS version distribution is.
http://blog.adduplex.com/2015/02/adduplex-windows-phone-statistics.html
I hope this helps!
@Joshua, definitely helps a bunch! I found some useful resources regarding enabling Hyper-V on my particular laptop model, and I’m running through those now. I’ll report back on my success.
Thanks also for the cheap WP phone tip. I was looking at Newegg; I should have known to price-check on Amazon!
Issue #2: The service “Windows Phone IP over USB Transport (IpOverUsbSvc)” on my Win10 box isn’t started. I did find it in the services dialog, but as I said before, I can’t click on anything in this window so I can’t start this service.
Has anyone run into this issue? At this point, I think it’s closer to a Win10 problem (can’t start services because I can’t click on them) rather than a hardware problem.
You need admin permissions to start/stop Windows services. Perhaps you are not running as an admin then?
Go to the following folder in Windows Explorer:
Control Panel\System and Security\Administrative Tools
And then right click on “Services” and click on “Run as Administrator” from the popup menu.
Note: If you press “WindowsKey+S” and type in “Administrative Tools” in the search popup, it’ll display a shortcut that’ll open the Administrative Tools folder in Windows Explorer.
Joshua, thanks for the help on this. It’s becoming apparent that my Windows 10 build doesn’t behave like other folks. Here are the screens I have from my “settings” panel:
And here’s the “system” entry:
I can’t right click on anything in either window, and if I search for the “services” entry (which is how I found the window to begin with) I can’t right-click on that either. As a matter of fact, I can’t re-size the window, I can’t minimize or maximize the window. I can only close it. I know my right-click button works, so that’s out.
Am I missing something stupid? Does the fact that I can’t right-click inside the “settings” window mean that I’m not logged in as an administrator? I’ll try that now and report back…
GAHHH.
I swear that I am not an idiot, but ALL OF A SUDDEN I can click inside of my “services” window. I’m thinking about packing it in today and calling it a bad job, because I’m swinging and missing all over the place.
I was able to get the service to start, and I’ll report back once I confirm I can build to an .xap file. Thanks all for the help!
Great! Happy to help!
Also, I know that Charles was able to run the WP8 emulator on his Windows 10 preview machine. So, as long as your CPU supports SLAT, there is most definitely hope. 
Perhaps Microsoft’s Visual Studio installer doesn’t automatically set up everything for you on Windows 10 like it normally does on Windows 8… because I don’t remember having to manually enable the Windows service you mentioned. It just worked after installing it. I guess this is just part of the pain on jumping on the bleeding edge.
I guess so, Joshua. I’ve never been impressed with the early builds of any Microsoft OSes, and this one isn’t changing my mind anytime soon.
One last question for the day: I’m finally trying to build my app, and it keeps failing because I don’t have a Windows Phone connected to my machine. Do either of you know of a way to get around this? Is there a way I can emulate a WP device being connected, or perhaps just disable this pre-requisite?
Here are the steps I took to enable Hyper-V support within the virtual machine
If you just want to build a *.xap file, then click on “Build\Build Solution” from Visual Studio’s menu. That will build the app without deploying it to a device or emulator. The *.xap file is typically outputted under your project’s “bin” directory.
Also note that even though clicking the “>” toolbar button will cause a deployment failure due to a missing WP8 device/emulator, it’ll still do the “Build Solution” step up above and compile/output a *.xap file under your “bin” directory as well.
And if you look at the documentation in the link below, you need to build for “ARM” when building for a device. Building for “x86” is for testing purposes only via the WP8 emulator.
Joshua, thanks again for the info. I just sent the .xap over to test on a Windows Phone, so we’ll see what happens.
As I’ve told Rob, I hate making news, but this is going in the next FtF for sure!
Happy to help!
And I’ve got 1 more helpful tip, in case you don’t already know it. When you install Visual Studio 2013, it comes with an “Application Deployment” tool that allows you or someone else to deploy a XAP to a WP8 device connected via USB. Just do a Windows desktop search for “Application Deployment” and it should pop right up.