Requirements for Programming Windows Phone 7

Microsoft DreamSpark: Before we begin, for academics (student or faculty) go to Microsoft DreamSpark (https://www.dreamspark.com/Default.aspx) to sign up for an account. Microsoft gives out an impressive array of free software (e.g., Visual Studio 2010) and other services (e.g., Windows Phone Marketplace registration) for academics. Sign up an account to take full advantage!

As in programming for all mobile/portable devices, there are four issues to be concerned with: valid IDE, Device SDK, Vendor Registration, and Device Registration. All of the following steps are straightforward and can be accomplished in real time (immediately). All except Vendor Registration, where personal identity verification can take hours or days.

1. Operating System and IDE: this is integrated environment you will be working in. For WP7, you must work with either Windows 7 or Vista (not XP), and for the actual IDE, you can work with either:
   • Visual Studio Express (free):  http://www.microsoft.com/express/Phone/.
   • Visual Studio 2010: free for academics via Microsoft DreamSpark (https://www.dreamspark.com/Products/Product.aspx?ProductId=25).
   Download and install.

2. Device SDK: This is referred to as "Windows Phone Developer Tools".
   • Download:
     • http://developer.windowsphone.com/windows-phone-7/ (The tab is towards top-left).
   • Installation: installing these tools will cause WP7 API to be registered with the IDE such that you will be able to create Windows Phone Games project with the IDE. The other two important tools installed are:
     • Phone Emulator: for testing WP7 apps without actual device.
     • Windows Phone Developer Registration: more about this later. This program lets you unlock your phone device for development.

3. Vendor Registration: for security reasons, all mobile device vendors requires to verify your identity before allowing you to develop for their platform. In WP7 case, this verification is built into the Windows Phone Marketplace registration:
   • Create/Register an account with Windows Phone Market place (once again, you will need a Windows Live login).
     • $99 route: Go to Windows Phone Developer Home: http://developer.windowsphone.com/Default.aspx and follow the "join to submit your apps & games" link (http://create.msdn.com/en-us/home/membership). This registration will cost you $99- a year.
     • Alternative (free), you can register for free through your DreamSpark account: https://www.dreamspark.com/Products/Product.aspx?ProductId=28, look for Register for the Marketplace and follow the link. Registration via this avenue is free, however, refer to identity verification, you must perform an extra step to trigger identify verification.
   • To enable this account, you must:
     • verify your email: your email address must be verified. Make sure you reply to the email they send you.
     • verify your identify: if you paid the $99 registration fee, an independent company (GeoTrust) will contact you requesting the verification of some personal information, alternatively, they will send you a letter (electronically) where you have to sign and email them a photocopy of a government issue ID (e.g., driver license). If you registered via DreamSpark, then, you must actively trigger the identity verification process. Please refer to the end of this document (here) on the procedure to trigger this verification process. Once all information is available to GeoTrust, it takes them literally minutes to approve your account (personal identity verified).
   After registered with the Vendor, you are finally ready to register and unlock your device.

4. Device Registration: WP7 device communicates with the PC via the provided USB cable and the Zune software. To register/unlock your device for development, you will need:
   • Zune: verify/install the latest Zune software ( http://www.zune.net/).
   • Windows Phone Developer Registration: this is installed as part of the Windows Phone Developer Tools (accessible on your machine via:
     Start → All Programs→Windows Phone Developer Tools
     
   • Make sure your Zune is running, start Windows Phone Developer Registration and unlock your phone with your Windows Live account.
5. You can now build a WP7 application in your IDE and downlaod to your WP7 device.
   • Watch out: at any point your WP7 device will only allow two of the application you developed to be loaded. If you want to load a third app, you would need to uninstall one of the other two app you have loaded.
   • Uninstall: to uninstall an application from the WP7 device, select the app on the phone and hold, you will see the uninstall menu.

References

• Windows Phone Developer Tools: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402523%28v=VS.92%29.aspx.

• Visual Studio Express: For more information about developing WP7 applications with Visual Studio Express: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff630878%28v=VS.92%29.aspx
• Visual Studio: For more information about developing developing WP7 applications with Visual Studio: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402574%28v=VS.92%29.aspx
• Windows Phone Emulator: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402563%28v=VS.92%29.aspx
• Windows Phone Developer Registration Tool: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff769508%28v=VS.92%29.aspx

How to Trigger Person Identification Verification (for registration via DreamSpark)

• Login to your market place home page: go to your Windows Phone dash board, the following image is from August 2010, what you see now may be quite different, but you will see something along the line of:
  
  Notice the Pending identity unverified (Green Arrow, upper left). We want to trigger verification to turn this into verified.
• On this page, click on the submit new app button (Blue Arrow, upper right)
• Fill in anything you want on the subsequent screens regarding your application. Please refer to the resources in this zipped folder (ResourceForSubmitDumbApp.zip), in particular, notice the images with different resolutions and the .cab file. Use these resources as will be necessary in your application submission process. Do not be overly concerned over what you filled in, everything is bogus anyway. NOTE: the content for the zip file is meant for Windows 6.5 app submission, follow the submission of Windows 6.5 can also successfully accomplish the ID verification outcome. (these materials were developed before Windows Phone 7 was released).
• Submit your application for verification. This will trigger GeoTrust to contact you for verification of your identity.

	This work is supported in part by Microsoft Research under the Computer Gaming Curriculum in Computer Science RFP, Award Number 15871 and 16531, and Microsoft Higher Education.
9/15/2010