Windows Phone 7 emulator doesnt work properly and just flickers

Question

Windows Phone 7 emulator doesn't work properly on my laptop. It just flickers instead of starting my app. Clicking on any of the buttons has no effect. (None of the emulators work, tried 256MB, 512MB, and the ones installed by WP 7.8 SDK Update) WP 7.8 SDK Update didn't solve anything.

I'm using a Samsung NP300E5A-S06 notebook, and it has:

• Core i5 3210M 2.5Ghz
• Intel HD Graphics 4000 + GeForce GT 620M
• 6GB of RAM

Here is a video of what's happening on my machine. I heard this can be caused by the Intel HD Graphics 4000. But we can't force WP Emulator to use the GeForce.

How can I make the WP7 emulator work properly?

If you have any idea or a working solution, please help me! Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

First, download and install the latest GPU drivers for both GPUs. If it will help, you're lucky: I had something very similar on machine (dual GPU Intel + NVidia as well), and was unable to find a fix.

My advice - upgrade to Windows 8, install visual studio 2012, and WP8 SDK. Fortunately, with the recent version of the SDK you can still build for the previous WP 7.1 platform. And even if xde.exe still won't work on your laptop, you can test and debug the application you're building on new HyperV-based WP8 emulators.

Answer 2

sorry, I cant comment.

Did you try repairing the installation?

Also completely removing and then re-installing?

EDIT:

Also you can try running it on a virtual machine on your laptop (Maybe there is some problem in your Windows installation - after all its Windows ;) )

Answer 3

i think i have had series of problems with that emulator months ago, but now, all is just well. i have some questions for you. 1) Which version of Visual Studio are you using. i believe it should be visual studio 2010 2) have you installed visual studio 2010 service pack 1? if no, try to download it and install 3) which version of .net framework are you using? Visual Studio installs .net3.0 automatically but i guess you have to install the service pack 1 too. you can download it or get it from windows update. in the update settings, choose"check for updates but let me choose which to download and install" then check the two or three check boxes below. then click okay and check for updates. you will then install updates for visual studio 2010 and .net framework.

those should help.