Visual Basic for the WP Developer Tools RTW Available for Download

Today, the RTW (Release To Web) version of Visual Basic for Windows Phone Developer Tools has been released for all developers interested in benefiting from its features so as to come up with applications for the Windows Phone 7 platform.

The new version of the app follows the September release of the CTP flavor of Visual Basic for the Windows Phone Developer Tools.

The new tool was already made available for download, offering developers the possibility to build and release Silverlight applications and games aimed at the mobile platform using Visual Basic.

Microsoft's Larry Lieberman notes in a post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog that the VB for WP sample code was also enhanced, and that new samples were made available for developers.

“The big news is that you can now build and release Silverlight applications and games for Windows Phone built in Visual Basic to the Windows Phone Marketplace,” he states.

“In addition, we've spent time beefing up our VB for WP sample code. Check out new VB versions of our released samples on MSDN.”

With this release, official support for Visual Basic was added to Windows Phone, he mentions, adding that this release should result in a series of new apps and games being released into the wild.

Developers interested in downloading and using the new release should note the following:

This initial release of the Visual Basic add-on for the Windows Phone Developer Tools requires Visual Studio 2010 Professional or higher; Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone is not supported.

This release is only for Silverlight projects only; the Visual Basic add on for the Windows Phone Developer Tools does not support projects built on the XNA Framework.

Visual Basic for Windows Phone Developer Tools RTW is available for download from Softpedia too, via this link.

Those of you who do not have Visual Studio 2010 will find it available for download from here.