Official support has yet to be included in the development tools

Apr 6, 2012 08:59 GMT  ·  By

Windows Phone application developers have found themselves in a bit of a situation last month when trying to put the official developer tools from Microsoft on Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

There have been issues with the two working together, and Microsoft announced that Windows 8 CP did not actually offer support for the Windows Phone SDK and that they were working on finding a solution for that.

Apparently, they did manage to resolve some of the underlying problems, and the latest Windows Phone SDK release, namely version 7.1.1, unlocks its use on Windows 8.

However, official support is not yet included, and it might take a while before Windows Phone developers will be able to fully take advantage of the SDK on Windows 8 computers.

“Lots of people are digging into the new development platform opportunities provided by Windows 8, and we understand there are a lot of questions about what they may portend for Windows Phone developers,” Microsoft’s Larry Lieberman notes in a blog post.

He also unveiled some of the company’s future plans regarding the mobile operating system, such as the fact that existing Windows Phone applications will work on the next major release of the platform.

“Driving application compatibility is a function of Microsoft’s commitment to its developers. Regardless of what we release in terms of new developer features and functionality, we have made a large investment in protecting your existing investments,” Lieberman explains.

He also notes that devs should not be concerned of the long term future of Silverlight for Windows Phone, since XAML and C#/VB.NET development in Windows 8 can be seen as the evolution of Silverlight.

“All of your managed programming skills are transferrable to building applications for Windows 8, and in many cases, much of your code will be transferrable as well. Note that when targeting a tablet vs. a phone, you do of course, need to design user experiences that are appropriately tailored to each device,” he continues.

In other words, Microsoft has just confirmed not only that applications available today for its mobile OS will work on Windows Phone 8 (Apollo) as well, but also that Windows 8 software will be compatible with the platform to a certain extent, just as previously rumored.