How to Install Portable Library Tools on Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone

Question

I've been trying to install the Portable Library Tools and create a Portable Class Library using Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone. It seems like it should work as PCL says it supports Visual Studio Express. Unfortunately, I run into issues as it won't recognize that VS 2010 SP1 is installed.

How would I go about installing the Portable Library Tools into Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone?

I've done the following

1. Installed Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone
2. Installed Windows Phone Developer Tools January 2011 Updates
3. Installed Visual Studio SP1
4. Attempt to install Portable Library Tools

At that point receive a "You don't have Visual Studio 2010 SP1". Any ideas? Or am I destined to have to purchase Visual Studio? The goal is to be able to build an SDK library that supports desktop .NET, ASP.NET as well as Windows Phone 7.

Answer 1

I had the same problem one-time with a Professional Version that any setup not recognize SP1. Simple reinstall solved the problem.

OR

Express Editions only supports templates and toolbox controls extensions.

So maybe PCL not falls under this category then you have to purchase Professional or higher.

Source: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsx/thread/cba49ad3-ad5c-4b10-b33c-948ce191c2a4/

Answer 2

Create a normal class library project and then change from

<Import Project="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />

to

<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\Portable\$(TargetFrameworkVersion)\Microsoft.Portable.CSharp.targets" />

in.csproj file.

Remove some unnecessary dll references, Remove some lines from AssemblyInfo.cs

and It works for me on Visual Web Developer Express.

Answer 3

If you already have a portable class libray (e.g. created with a pro edition of Visual Studio 2012), you can also open its project file in a text editor and replace the <ProjectTypeGuids> element with the following:

<ProjectTypeGuids>{BC8A1FFA-BEE3-4634-8014-F334798102B3};{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}</ProjectTypeGuids>

Worked for me - at least i could open and build the project in Visual Studio 2012 Express (for Windows 8), i also had no problems referencing the portable library from an Windows Store App project and running it. I hope i'm not running into problems later on...