Portable class library in visual studio 2013 (wp7/win8)

Question

How to create PCL wp7/win8 in visual studio 2013? I have already installed windows phone 7 sdk and windows phone 8 sdk, but it does not help. There is no option for wp 7.1.

Answer 1

There is a solution according to http://www.johanlaanstra.nl/2013/09/22/portable-class-libraries-with-wp7-support-in-visual-studio-2013-rc

...was wondering why Visual Studio would upgrade the project while the profile was there on disk. While digging through the xml files for Profile104 (C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework.NETPortable\v4.0\Profile\Profile104), which is the profile I was using, I found some xml files in the SupportedFrameworks subfolder. These xml files defined a MinimumVisualStudioVersion and a MaximumVisualStudioVersion. For Profile104, one of the files contained MaximumVisualStudioVersion="11" which means Visual Studio 2012. Changing all xml files for the profile to have MaximumVisualStudioVersion="12", which means Visual Studio 2013, made my scenario work after a restart of Visual Studio. I can now open the PCL in Visual Studio 2013 without it being upgraded. Make sure you restart VS after this change to make it work.

Answer 2

Visual Studio 2013 has removed support for Windows Phone 7.x, Silverlight 4 and Xbox development.

For the entire list of compatibility between Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio 2013, see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/hh266747(v=vs.120).aspx.

Answer 3

Visual Studio does not support Windows Phone 7 development.

This may change in the future but, based on what has happened with previous versions of Visual Studio and separate SDKs, I suspect that is unlikely.

It's only possible to target PCL projects for SDKs that are installed.

You could build your PCL in VS2012 and consume it in a VS2103 project though.

On the other (/plus?) side, there are free versions of VS2012 and VS2013 and the can be installed side by side so you'll be able to build for WP7 for plenty of time to come.

Answer 4

Keep in mind that VS 2013 is still a preview. So maybe it will be available later but for the moment it looks like you can only create a PCL project with support for both Windows Phone 7 and Windows Store apps by using Visual Studio 2012