Create an off-line Installer for the Windows Phone 7.8 SDK

Introduction

In case you missed the news today the Windows Phone 7.8 SDK has been released. Thee first question posted on the blog was: 

In which the following answer was given:

@Necroman - Unfortunately we don't have an ISO/offline installer for the update. I'll inquire and see if we can get one spun up but I wouldn't count on it short term. :)

Actually there is…

It turns out there is a way. I tweeted about a way to do it and thought I’d write a blog post to help remind myself and educate others.

First you need to download the installer file located here. It is named WPExpress78_update.exe.

After the file is downloaded open a command prompt and type the following:

WPExpress78_update.exe /layout c:\wp78temp

P.S. You can see a list of all available commands by typing WPExpress78_update.exe /?

That will pop open the following window:

Hit download and once it completes you should have about 5.45 GB of data. (Note: This is every language and includes 7.1.1)

Now you can navigate over to this local folder and run the WPExpress78_update.exe file. Installation will begin like normal. You now have the ability to copy this whole directory to a USB thumb drive and install it as needed. 

Notice the acquiring part only takes a few seconds and depending on your machine it applies the proper image.

Once everything completes then you are done.

You may now launch Visual Studio 2012 and select OS 7.1.

From the emulator drop down list you can see the two new emulator images added.

 

You may select Emulator 7.8 and run the app and see the following bare-bones start screen:

After pinning an item to the start screen you now have the option to make it a smaller tile.

A few other things need to be in place in order to customize the tile and they can be found in this document.

I hope this helps!

-Michael