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

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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: 

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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

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

That will pop open the following window:

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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)

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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. 

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

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Once everything completes then you are done.

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

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

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

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

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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

Updated:

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