VS Express for Windows 7 Phone + VB.NET

[kwhy]

maybe someone that has been following the development of the Windows 7 phone toolkits/SDK from the beginning might be able to clear up some of the confusion I'm having below.

I've been waiting for the release of win7 phones in hopes that I might be able to write some programs for my phone in vb.net. I see that the first betas did not support vb.net or visual basic, but it looks like it was finally added (or was it?)

Does "Visual Studio EXPRESS 2010 for Windows Phone" support vb.net programming and if so are there templates for vb.net programs available? I found some templates that install for the full working copy of Visual Studio I guess (CTP), but none for Express?

I can't get any of the VB samples offered on Microsoft's support website work in VS Express 2010? I'm assuming this is older Visual Basic and not VB.NET?

Does VS 2010 Express for Windows Phone ONLY support C#?

Am I out of luck unless I buy a copy of Visual Studio if I want to write some programs in vb.net (w/ silverlight) for windows 7 phone?

[dilettante]

I had the idea you're stuck with C# at least for now. I doubt any edition of Visual Studio will make any difference.

This isn't a general .Net CF platform like Windows Mobile was, you're stuck with more limited options.


Perhaps someone else knows more about the state of affairs now though.

[Nightwalker83]

From what I was told Windows Phone 7 applications are written in C#. Mobile development is done in C# for the newer Windows Phones. I read here that VB.Net support on Windows Phone might happen later on.

Matt is right, there will definitely be support for writing VB apps for windows Phone 7, but we are still working on the details and the timeline.

By the way, please post Windows phone 7.0 question on Windows Phone 7 forum, where you can get better reply.

Best regards,
Guang-Ming Bian - MSFT
MSDN Subscriber Support in Forum

[kwhy]

From what I was told Windows Phone 7 applications are written in C#. Mobile development is done in C# for the newer Windows Phones. I read here that VB.Net support on Windows Phone might happen later on.

yeah most of the searches seem to pull up the *soon* answer..


I just ran across this..

Visual Basic Comes to Windows Phone 7 with a catch

says..

You need to be a Visual Studio 2010 Professional (or higher) customer. So if you only have the Express edition of the Windows Phone Developer Tools, you cannot use this version of the CTP.

It sounds like that is even limited right now in Visual Studio anyway.

I'll get some C# books and just move onto that since it seems like the majority of code/help posted seems to be in C# anyway. I was just hoping to be able to use some of my current vb.net programs without converting them.

[Nightwalker83]

Although, there are probably ways of converting the mobile source to c# just like there is for normal applications. So you could probably write the code in vb.net and then convert it to C# later on.

[dbasnett]

IF Microsoft had an Express version of VB for their phone I might be tempted to buy their phone. I guess I'll just keep the phone I currently have