XNA Exporter and Windows Phone 8 SDK - Important info and lessons learned, so far

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    With the release of the Windows Phone 8 SDK I encountered some issues with an app I was creating with MMF2 and I wanted to share the resolutions to them with the group. This information may change with further updates from MMF to the XNA Exporter.

    Please feel free to add to this thread to centralize info as we all find it.

    - XNA is still supported with the Windows Phone 8 SDK FOR PHONES ONLY (this is the same for the full version of Visual Studio 2012).
    - The WP8 SDK includes the WP7.1 templates and emulators
    - You can't run the WP8 emulators if your system does not support Hardware Virtualization
    - The WP7 SDK and WP8 SDK are supposed to be able to be installed side-by-side, but I ended up Refreshing my Win 8 PC and just installing MMF2 and the WP8 SDK to narrow down issues while troubleshooting.

    MMF Exports Windows Phone 7.0 Projects
    As far as I can tell, MMF only exports Windows Phone 7.0 projects. For the VS2012 Express (WP8 SDK) to open a project without a lot of reference errors it has to be Windows Phone 7.1.

    You can update the project in the WP7 SDK, or you can do it manually.

    To update the project manually edit the "<project name>.csproj" file with Notepad. In Notepad, at the top of the file under <PropertyGroup>, add the following: <XnaRefreshLevel>1</XnaRefreshLevel>

    Save the file and open in VS2012.


    Microsoft Advertising AdContol has a Warning Symbol and prevents deployment
    If you look under REFERENCES in VS2012, the Microsoft.Advertising.Mobile.Xna will have "!" warning symbol. If you look at the properties, the version will be "0.0.0".
    Right-click on the Microsoft.Advertising.Mobile.Xna reference and select "Remove".
    Right-click on REFERENCES and select "Add Reference".
    Select the "Microsoft.Advertising.Mobile.xna" reference under the .NET tab and click OK.
    Save your project.

    Back Button exits app
    I haven't found a solution to this one yet. No matter how the behavior is set in the events for the "back button pressed" on the XNA object condition, it ends up exiting the application. Depending on your app, it may be major or minor, but it shouldn't prevent it from passing certification because the back button still "works".

    -Steve

    Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to CT's response.

    In the meanwhile, can you tell what is the practical effect of doing this: "You can update the project in the WP7 SDK, or you can do it manually.", i.e. what does it change?

    Thanks for the info. I'll get a new Windows 8 machine as soon as I complete the HTML5 runtime.
    For XBOX development, I'll look into Monogame library, which is supposed to allow you to make XBOX XNA games in Windows 8.

    Francois
    PM: Please login to see this link.

    Thanks for the information sbucci, however when I follow these steps (using windows 8, Visual studio express for Windows Phone which came with the Windows Phone 8 SDK) I am getting this error, also same error if I try on a new blank XNA app.

    "An exception of type 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentLoadException' occurred in Microsoft.Xna.Framework.ni.dll but was not handled in user code

    If there is a handler for this exception, the program may be safely continued."

    Any ideas?

    Leuvsion Union Project (Please login to see this link.)

    ah, seemed I was running a beta of MMf2, installed stock mmf2 and its working on my windows phone 8 device! however without changing any settings it WONT run on a windows phone 7.5 device now, how can we get it to be compatible for anything 7 or greater?

    Leuvsion Union Project (Please login to see this link.)

    Cheers Francois, focusing my own efforts on Windows Phone for now has the most to grow so a good time to jump in ;)

    p.s. will the HTML5 plugin make Windows RT compatible Apps?

    Leuvsion Union Project (Please login to see this link.)

    I'm thinking about purchasing the XNA exporter,.. so as far as it seems it only runs on windows phone up to 7.1, right? Or it just doesn't run on windows phone 8, or doesn't have some of windows 8 features?

    MMF2 generated XNA applications do run on WP7.0, 7.5 and 8.0, but you can only target WP7.0 with XNA which means that you are not able to take advantage of new features and capabilities in WP8. This is not due to MMF, but XNA itself, as it seems to play nowadays a smaller role in Microsoft's supported development frameworks for WP8.

    Until this is fixed I can't publish any Windows Phone apps, and now have several queuing, please can we make this a priority. (I no longer have any windows 7 or lower machines, and the windows phone 7.1 SDK wont install on Windows 8)

    Leuvsion Union Project (Please login to see this link.)

    Yes, the WP7.1 SDK DOES install on Windows 8.

    - Uninstall what you have installed already
    - Install Games For Windows : Please login to see this link.
    - Install the WP7.1 SDK, it will work

    Problem with the 7.1 SDK under W8 is that you can you cannot run your application :(

    Why cant you publish your project under WP8 SDK? It works fine. What is preventing them from being published? (there is certainly a way to modify the project preferences directly in Visula Studio so that you can publish)...

    Francois
    PM: Please login to see this link.

    Thanks Francois, odd how Microsoft does not show 'games for windows' as a prerequisites on the 7.1 SDK download page in the App Hub. However what concerns me is you say you can't run application using it, doesn't that make the whole thing pointless? no one would upload an app that's never had any real testing on devices they plan to sell to people.

    To clarify can you not run apps just on the emulator / windows phone devices or both? If you can still run on devices this would be a work around for now.

    Also you can submit apps to be review on the WP8 SDK however they get rejected as they don't work correctly (and so they should):

    error report from Microsoft: "When the user deactivates the application, the application does not reactivate when the user presses the device Back button immediately or after waiting for ten seconds."

    Leuvsion Union Project (Please login to see this link.)

    OK now have SDK 7.1 on my machine (windows 8 pro) and MMF2 R255., when I try to build either to devices or emulator I get the error:

    "The configuration data for this product is corrupt. Contact your support personnel."

    Is this the known issue in not being able to build? Any help would be much appreciated.

    Leuvsion Union Project (Please login to see this link.)

    Hi Farncois, I'm not sure this will help as it happens with the most basic game, including this frame with one animated object: Please login to see this link.

    also may have misunderstood what you said previously about 7.1 sdk on windows 8 "Problem with the 7.1 SDK under W8 is that you can you cannot run your application".

    please note I have published games to windows phone before under windows 7.

    Leuvsion Union Project (Please login to see this link.)

    This message is generated by Visual Studio itself. I have the same message, but when I try to run the games. A build works.
    So you have the problems when building? (try "build" from the project window popup menu).

    Francois
    PM: Please login to see this link.

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