Can I compile BOO on WinRT for a Windows 8 App? Have you tried?
Someone would have to write a Boo IDE/compiler that was deployed as an application to the Windows Store in order to compile on Windows RT (ARM). A quick search shows 2676 apps with "Boo" as a keyword (really?!) on the Windows Store, but none for a combination of "Boo and Compiler".
Would it be possible, at least on Windows 8 (vs. RT)? probably. The Boo compiler would need to essentially implement language projections to the Windows Runtime in the same way as .NET, C++, and JavaScript do in Windows 8 today. From the commits on the github project, there doesn't appear to be activity in that regard, but it seems like Windows Phone 7.x is in their sights.
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I have a windows 8 metro game (using monogame) that i developed and plan to submit to windows 8 app store and i wish to obfuscate it. How can i do it? Will obfuscation cause runtime errors?
We use Crypto Obfuscator. It has a very decent GUI, a great support team, and most importantly both Visual Studio integration and support for Obfuscating Windows 8 Store apps.
You can try Manco .NET Obfuscator. Version 4.5 supports obfuscating of the .NET Windows 8 Store applications.
Check the babel obfuscator.
The obfuscator usually "just" makes your code unreadable, alone it won't cause any runtime exceptions but if some occurs (due to an app problem) you probably won't be able to track the error (because everything is obfuscated).
PS: Google is our friend
There's no emulator for Windows 8, so in order to develop metro apps I must install the release candidate on a device and run Visual Studio there, right? That's what this page seems to suggest, but I just wanted to double check.
Yes, Windows8 is required.
However, VM can be used. For example, I'm running Win8RP/64 and VS2012RC in Oracle VirtualBox on Win7/64.
NOTE: For developing Metro Style App, you should NOT install VirtualBox Extension Pack.
Yes, you need Windows 8 to develop Windows 8 Metro style apps.
Metro Style apps rely on a new set of APIs which are implemented only in Windows 8 through the the Windows Runtime (WinRT).
There is no emulator for Windows 7 and not even for Windows 8... Windows 8 has a simulator which in practice is just a Remote Desktop session to the same machine. It is not an emulator.
While Windows 8 is not in its final version, what I recommend is to install Windows 8 in a VHD (virtual hard disk) and boot your PC directly to the VHD. It is faster than running virtual machines (because only the disk is virtual, all the rest is real hardware) and you can keep your Windows 7 intact.
This is what I've been using since Developer Preview. I have a dual-boot configuration being one for the Windows 7 that is booting from the regular disk partition, and one Windows 8 that is booting directly from the VHD on disk.
Metro UI style is just a design approach and some guidelines. You are free to implement such interface using Visual Studio 2010 as well as 2008. Using C# and WPF everything is possible. But, indeed, new Visual Studio has a set of Metro style components (WPF) with which your development process will be much more quicker.
The only thing you can't use at OS other than Windows 8 - is WinRT subsystem.
Almost all of the development tools needed to build Metro style applications can be run on OS's other than Windows 8 (Visual Studio and the package creation tools require Windows 8). So it should be possible to set up a build environment using msbuild.exe (or even make/nmake) that will compile and link metro-style applications on an OS other than Windows 8.
However some parts of development MUST be done on Windows 8 - the tools for some of the steps of development will only run on Windows 8.
I want to know whether Metro Applications developed using Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview and .Net FrameWork 4.5 can run in Windows 7 or XP.
Not the normal Windows Form or WPF, I want to know about the all new Metro Apps.
What new things needed to run Metro Apps in Windows XP or Windows 7
What new things needed to run Metro Apps in Windows XP or Windows 7
A virtual machine of Windows 8. Metro apps currently don't run on Windows 7, and definitely don't on Windows XP. According to this thread, it's difficult but might happen eventually:
Keep your eyes out on future Channel 9 videos and on the BCL/CLR blog
for more information around the challeges of enabling the Portable
Library story, however, I will give a quick summary with regards to
ViewModels:
While the ViewModels themselves are defined by the
application, they often take dependencies on types (ie
INotifyXXXChanged interfaces, ICommand, etc) that live inside the
framework. Currently if you look across our multiple .NET platforms
(Silverlight, Phone, .NET and now Metro style apps), these all live in
different assemblies, and with Metro apps, a different
namespace/technology (WinRT). This makes it challeging to give the
user a surface area that can compile against and still have it run on
all these other platforms. We've got some ideas on how we're going to
enable this, however, it requires some work and doesn't come for free.
In saying that, however, we completely see the value and
really, really want to do this.David
But it's not currently possible. At best, you could just make a desktop app version of the same thing.
I tried it on Window 7 and answer is definitely no, you can not even develop Metro style App in Windows 7, for developing also you need Windows 8 and Visual Studio 11.
I'd be astonished if Win8 Metro-Style apps would ever work on Win7 - there is a huge amount of OS level infrastructure necessary to get those apps to work on Win8 that simply isn't available on Win7.
Having said that, people have figured out to write applications that can be made to work on both *nix and Windows with a recompile, so I imagine eventually it might be possible to write an app that could be recompiled to produce a metro-style version and a WPF/Silverlight version. But that technology simply doesn't exist at the moment.
Id say no, based on the fact that Metro requires WinRT which is not available on Windows 7 or XP
This depends on what you might want to do.
For example, if you're developing a game and want it to run on Metro/Modern UI but also on other Windows versions, MonoGame is a great option!
It will allow you to develop for and run on:
All Windows desktops
Windows 8 Metro/Modern UI
Mac OS X
Linux
XBOX 360
iOS
Android
Windows Phone
And possibly more platforms on the future.
In my honest opinion having such a wealth of target platforms warrants any learning curve you might have to develop for MonoGame. And not to mention that you can develop in the comfort of Visual Studio, so IMHO it's something to be considered even if your app is not strictly a game (who said you can't develop a non-game with a game framework...?).
Update: Here's a tutorial, and by the way, you may want to also consider HTML5 for games or non-games. Cut the Rope (very fun game) uses this, and it seems to be doing pretty well (I didn't even notice it was HTML5!).
I am developing an app for the apptivate.ms contest right now. So I can definitely tell you that the Metro apps won't work on Windows 7 or XP.
What is more, the Visual Studio Express version needed for developing the Metro Apps won't even install on Windows 7.
Also, just remember this sentence - "All Windows apps are not Windows 8 apps!"
The Wikipedia entry about Windows 8 claims in its Metro section that
Metro applications will be cross-compatible with both x86/64 based
systems and Windows on ARM.
but does not have a reference (it is marked with "citation needed").
Technically, would it be possible to run a "native" Metro app which was build using WinRT for x86/64 on ARM?
Yes, Metro apps are specifically stated as the supported method for doing cross platform apps on both Windows 8 and WOA (Windows on ARM). Full details are in this blog post. The post also states that other types of applications that run in Desktop mode in x86 Windows 8 are specifically not supported on WOA (some Microsoft apps being the sole exceptions).
A JS app should work on ARM unmodified. I'm not 100% sure about C#, an app written for "any CPU" should just work on ARM (but I've not confirmed). C++ applications will work, but will need to be recompiled specially for ARM.
Is there some kind of SDK out for WinRT.? Can we develop applications for it now?
Is VS2010 usable for developing or will some other IDE be shipped? Also, is C++ necessary to develop performance-oriented apps in WinRT, or will the C# applications give equivalent performance? Can development be done on Win7?
I am curious about this because I missed out when WPF was released and I don't want to miss out on this.
Take a look at the Windows Dev Center where you can download a copy of Windows 8, complete with all the new tools for developing for it.
Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview is also available on Subscriber Downloads if you do have a subscription, and it includes the WinRT SDK and runs on Windows 7 and other operating systems. So you can build it and debug it, but you still have to run your code on a Windows 8 machine.
Performance-wise, WinRT doesn't change the guidance for whether to use native code. The APIs will behave near identically regardless of what language you choose, so make the decision between C++ and C# just as you would today.