Windows 8.1 dont have hyper-v - cant use Windows Phone Emulator

Question

Lately i wanted to get into Windows Phone 8 development and i installed Visual Studio 2013 + Windows Phone SDK 8 + Visual Studio 2013 Latest update. My system parameters are: - 8gb ram - Windows 8.1 64bit system - Intel i5 The moment i try to run a Windows Phone project a dialog appears and it says: Title - " Cant start the windows phone emulator" Subtitle - "The Windows Phone Emulator requires Hyper-V.Your PC is missing the following pre-requisites required to run Hyper-V: -Windows 8 Professional(64 bit)"

After i saw that i checked for how to upgrade Normal Windows 8.1 to Windows 8.1 Professional. With no luck i tried to find out more about to install Hyper-V with the BIOS configuration with no luck as well.

Usually i develop on Android with Eclipse(with the Emulator) so i can't understand the reason why a emulator of Windows Phone can't run on my system.

P.S I don't have Hyper-V feature to be turned on/off in the windows feature list.

Thanks heads up for each answer! :)

Solution 1

I was in more or less the same situation. Current Hyper-V implementation requires 64bit OS and virtualization support on the processor level. Sadly, this only exists in relatively newer (gen 3 and 4 Intel) under Windows. To verify if your CPU supports the necessary virtualization requirements, use CoreInfo by Mark Russinovich from SysInternals.

If your CPU does not have the required support, you can still use a real phone for development/debugging. The good news: a Lumia 520 is only $55 in stores (probably less on eBay).

Solution 2

I am running Windows 8.1 Professional on a Surface tablet (i5) and a laptop (i7). Both have Visual Studio 2013 installed, both have Hyper-V enabled and both have successfully run the Phone emulator.

It would seem that your hardware is up to the task, the only thing preventing you from enabling Hyper-V and running the emulator would appear to be the Windows edition: you need at least Professional.

Solution 3

In short, hardware which supports HyperV is needed (which you have) and Windows Professional is needed to enable HyperV to run phone emulator. Windows Standard to Professional upgrade needs another licence which you can get it from Microsoft.

Comments

[Ramhound]

Your only solution is to upgrade to Professional since Hyper-V requires it and Windows Phone Emulator requires Hyper-V they sell keys to media center pack which is what you want in stores

[Ido Magor]

I used the Coreinfo and it says : HYPERVISOR - Hypervisor is present VMX * Supports Intel hardware-assisted virtualizat EPT * Supports Intel extended page tables (SLAT)

[Traveling Tech Guy]

Sounds like your CPU supports Hyper-V. Follow the instructions in this article to activate Hyper-V: howtogeek.com/76532/…

[Ramhound]

This really isn't an answer. There was no question the hardware supports it. Its just that the version of Windows he has installed does not support Hyper-V which is required for the Windows Phone emulator.

[Zenilogix]

I thought that's what I said

[Ramhound]

All you said is, you got it to work, with your particular hardware with Windows 8.1 Professional installed. Which doesn't help the author if they have Windows 8.1 Core installed now does it?

[Max]

How can I get that licence from Microsoft?

[Baha]

For Windows 7/Windows 8, windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/help/videos/… or en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Anytime_Upgrade. Which OS you have now? Microsoft Sales Specialist confirmed: Microsoft no longer offers Windows 8.1 pro for download or purchase as they have moved to the new Windows 10. If you would like to still purchase Windows 8.1 pro, you will need to purchase from a third-party retailer.

[Max]

Current version is Windows 8.1 Single language, i want to upgrade it with 8.1 pro or 10 pro.

[Baha]

@max First update to Windows 10. If current version is not Windows 8.1 Pro, OS will be upgraded to Windows 10 Home (more information here link ). Then, Windows 10 Pro licence could be bought navigating to Start -> Settings -> Update and Security -> Activation -> Go to Store (more detailed info here link ). Windows Logo -> Settings -> Update and Security -> Activation -> Change Product Key to update the product key.