System requirements for the emulator for Windows Phone 8

Article
05/20/2016

[ This article is for Windows Phone 8 developers. If you’re developing for Windows 10, see the latest documentation. ]

The requirements described in this topic do not apply to the Windows Phone 7.1 Emulator. Windows Phone SDK 8.0 installs both the Windows Phone 8 Emulator and the Windows Phone 7.1 Emulator.

This topic contains the following sections.

Quick checklist

Here is a quick checklist of the requirements for running the Windows Phone 8 Emulator. For more detailed info, see the subsequent sections in this topic.

System requirements
- In the BIOS, the following features must be supported:
  - Hardware-assisted virtualization.
  - Second Level Address Translation (SLAT).
  - Hardware-based Data Execution Prevention (DEP).
- 4 GB or more of RAM.
- 64-bit version of Windows 8 Pro edition or higher.
Network requirements
- DHCP.
- Automatically configured DNS and gateway settings.
Hyper-V requirements
- In the BIOS, the following features must be enabled:
  - Hardware-assisted virtualization.
  - Second Level Address Translation (SLAT).
  - Hardware-based Data Execution Prevention (DEP).
- In Windows, Hyper-V must be enabled and running.
- You have to be a member of the local Hyper-V Administrators group.

System requirements

Your computer must meet the following requirements:

BIOS
In the BIOS, the following features must be supported:
- Hardware-assisted virtualization.
- Second Level Address Translation (SLAT).
- Hardware-based Data Execution Prevention (DEP).
RAM
4 GB or more.
Operating system
- Windows 8
- 64-bit
- Pro edition or higher

To check the BIOS requirements, see How to enable Hyper-V for the emulator for Windows Phone 8.

To check requirements for RAM and Windows, in Control Panel, click System and Security, and then click System.

Network requirements

Your network must meet the following requirements:

DHCP
The emulator requires DHCP because it configures itself as a separate device on the network with its own IP address.
Automatically configured DNS and gateway settings
It’s not possible to configure DNS and gateway settings manually for the emulator.

For more info about networking in the Windows Phone 8 Emulator, see Windows Phone Emulator for Windows Phone 8.

To troubleshoot networking issues in the emulator, see the following topics.

Hyper-V requirements

For detailed info about how to check and enable the requirements for Hyper-V, see How to enable Hyper-V for the emulator for Windows Phone 8.

Hyper-V requirements in the BIOS
Your computer’s BIOS must support the following requirements, and they must be enabled:
- Hardware-assisted virtualization.
- Second Level Address Translation (SLAT).
- Hardware-based Data Execution Prevention (DEP).
Hyper-V requirements in Windows
When your computer and BIOS settings are already configured to support Hyper-V, the setup program for the SDK enables and starts Hyper-V. Otherwise you may have to enable these requirements manually.

Requirement	How to check and enable this requirement
Hyper-V must be installed.	See How to enable Hyper-V for the emulator for Windows Phone 8.
Hyper-V must be running.	Check the status of the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service in the Services snap-in. For more info about managing services, see the following topics: Start, stop, pause, resume, or restart a service Configure how a service is started

Hyper-V must be installed.

See How to enable Hyper-V for the emulator for Windows Phone 8.

Hyper-V must be running.

Check the status of the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service in the Services snap-in.

For more info about managing services, see the following topics:

You have to be a member of the local Hyper-V Administrators group.
To run the Windows Phone 8 Emulator without a recurring prompt to elevate your rights, you have to be a member of the local Hyper-V Administrators group. If you are already a local administrator on the computer when you install the SDK, the setup program for the SDK adds you to the Hyper-V Administrators group. Otherwise you may have to enable this requirement manually.

When you run the emulator, if you are not already a member of the Hyper-V Administrators group, you are prompted to join the group. Joining the group requires administrator rights. After you join the group, you have to log off or reboot for the change to take effect.

To add yourself to a group manually, open the Local Users and Groups snap-in. For more information, see Add a user account to a group. (This Windows 7 topic is also applicable to Windows 8.)

Running the emulator from a bootable VHD is not supported

If you try to run an app on the Windows Phone 8 Emulator while you are running Windows from a bootable VHD, the emulator typically takes several minutes to start or fails to start. When the emulator fails to start, you see the following message: App deployment failed. Please try again.

This configuration is not supported. For information about related issues, see Troubleshooting the Windows Phone 8 Emulator.

Hyper-V requires uncompressed and unencrypted files

On a hard drive configured with the NTFS file system, the virtual hard disk files used by Hyper-V must be uncompressed and unencrypted. Make sure that the following directories are not compressed or encrypted:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v8.0\Emulation\Images
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\XDE

On the ReFS file system, the virtual hard disk files must not have the integrity bit set.

Requirement for the Windows Phone OS 7.1 emulator

The Windows Phone OS 7.1 emulator requires a DirectX 10 or later graphics card with a WDDM 1.1 or later driver. You can check whether your graphics card meets these requirements by running the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, dxdiag.exe.

After you start the tool, on the System tab, check the DirectX Version.

Then, on the Display tab, check the Driver Model.

Support resources

To find answers and solve problems as you work with the tools in Windows Phone SDK 8.0, visit the Tools for Windows Phone Development forum. To see all the forums for Windows Phone development, visit Windows Phone Development Forums. To review other support options, visit MSDN Troubleshooting and Support.