Windows Phone 7 emulator on a VM?

Question

It seems that the Windows Phone 7 SDK doesn\'t support running inside a VM. On Parallels, the entire VM simply crashes when the emulator is starting up.

Around the web,

Answer 1

If you're deploying to a device, you should be able to use a VM, since it's the emulator that has issues being a VM itself.

Answer 2

We have successfully deployed, and performance is acceptable in our environment, virtual Windows 8.1 Pro Desktop under VMware vSphere 5.5 (ESXi 5.5), and have the Windows 8 SDK and Emulator working correctly with no performance issues. (In Education - to University Labs for Windows Phone development).

The issue experienced by most, is you most have the Hypervisor pass through the Intel-VT into the VM, to effecticely create Nested Hypervisors. This is possible using VMware vSphere 5.5.

This option is available in virtual machine version 10, enabled in the vSphere Web Client - Enable Hardware Virtualisation.

Answer 3

As others have said, WP7 is itself a virtual machine. Even if you can get it to run inside a virtual machine like Parallels, the performance will be abysmal. If your computer supports hardware virtualization, the emulator runs really smooth, without it it's very very sluggish. Running it inside another VM will make it even more sluggish - I am guessing to the point that it's unusable.

I know this is not the answer you want to hear, but I would recommend running Windows in Bootcamp, you will have much better experience developing and emulating.

Answer 4

The WinPhone7 (and WinPhone8) emulator is itself a VM and few (if any) general-purpose VM's will host another VM infrastructure, which is why it crashes Parallels etc.

If you want to have the emulator run from within a different VM to the one MS provides, then you're into the realm of extracting images, toggling bits and trying to tack it into your VM of choice. Of course, the chances of the emulator then working as expected with no residual issues is as close to nil as makes no difference ;)

[Update 2013-01-30] VMWare5 & Parallels Desktop 8 now support running Hyper-V guest VM's. This is particularly useful for those wanting to develop against the Windows Phone 8 SDK which runs Windows Phone 8 guest VM's on Hyper-V.

Here's a guide to how to run Visual Studio 2012 & Windows 8 SDK (inc. the Windows Phone 8 Hyper-V-based emulator) in VMWare5 or Parallels desktop 5: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2012/12/21/how-to-develop-for-windows-phone-8-on-your-mac.aspx

Note: Running Windows & Hyper-V inside a VM will be slower than running natively. Dual-booting into Windows (using Boot Camp on OSX) is stil the recommended method of developing for the Windows platform, especially if you want to use Hyper-V guest VM's.

Answer 5

I'm working in VMware Fusion with Expression Blend 4 RC AND the emulator. works like a charm!

Answer 6

I'm not so sure about compatibility for long term development, but in last september, I remembering trying the Windows Phone 7.1beta SDK on VirtualBox (I'm using mac SL), a free virtual machine from oracle (previously by Sun) and it works well there.

I just do a regular install of Windows 7 Home Basic (any Win7 except Starter will do, CMIIW) in the VBox with no tweaking at all, install the GuestAddition inside win7 (provided by VBox), then install the SDK. I create new WP project, arrange UI, make some codes as usual, then run it in emulator. Surprisingly, the emulator works fairly well and showing the app I've developed.

I'm not even experience any lag (my macbook is i5, 4GB ram, the VBox setting is dual core, 2GB ram, note that no other heavy mac process is on the run, so I solely run the VBox ... and iTunes for listening musics).

So if you still want to try WP SDK 7.1 on VM, why don't you try VirtualBox? My current VBox is installed with Windows 8 and have no extra space to reinstall the win7+WPSDK. If you do give a try on VBox, please report the result here to inform everyone.