Marc Gregoire’s Blog

Microsoft has released the final version of the Windows Phone 7 developers tools 🙂
The package includes everything you need to start writing applications and games for Windows Phone 7. The package is completely free and includes all of the following:

• Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone – Free edition of VS 2010 for Phone development.
• Express Blend 4 for Windows Phone – Free version of Blend for Windows Phone 7 Development.
• Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 – Rich framework for building great applications for Windows Phone 7.
• XNA Game Studio for Windows Phone 7 – Rich framework that enables you to build great 2D and 3D games for Windows Phone 7.
• Windows Phone Emulator – A hardware accelerated emulator that allows you to run and debug your applications and games without requiring a phone.
• Phone Registration Tool – When you get a device, this allows you to “unlock” the device so you can run/debug your application on it, using your Marketplace account.

Download the tools here.
Read Scott Guthrie’s blog post to get much more details on the release.

The Windows Phone Application Platform was revealed at MIX 2010. If you couldn’t make it to Las Vegas to attend MIX, you can find the keynotes and sessions here. They explain in great details the Windows Phone 7 Series and how to develop applications for it.

The WP7S developer platform contains 2 frameworks:

• Silverlight: to make rich interactive applications
• XNA: to make complex 2D/3D games

Code is written in C#.

Everyone can start writing applications for the new phone platform. You only need to download 1 free package. This packages contains:

• Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone CTP
• Windows Phone Emulator CTP
• Silverlight for Windows Phone CTP
• XNA 4.0 Game Studio CTP

Download the package to get started. Only Windows Vista and Windows 7 are officially supported to run the tools. Note that the tools are currently in CTP state so they are not yet final. If you want to use Expression Blend you have to download it separately.

More information can be found on the Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Site, where you can also find developer guides, more detailed information, Windows Marketplace submission guidelines, forums, a few code samples etc…