Windows 8 App Development - Part 1 of ?

Windows 8 App Development - PT 1 of ?

Whaddup Internet

So this is a multi part blog to follow the development of my first Win 8 app. I thought now would be a good time to start since I am footloose and fancy free. Lets hope Win 8 catches on!

Note I am writing this blog as I perform each task so its a live commentary in a way, If things go wrong then this blog will act as a record of what I did wrong (or right!)

Installing the Windows 8 RTM

The first step is to set up my Windows 8 environment, I have chosen to install the RTM version straight up on my development laptop which is an HP ProBook 6550b, not ideal for this task but its the best I've got since losing my Asus EP121 slate (boo hoo..).

The reason why I'm installing it straight up is that I find VMs ungainly for development (I hate booting to an OS then opening a VM which takes half my resources etc etc) so I downloaded the Win8 RTM from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516 which is a page which SHOULD have everything we need to do this.

The download was 3.3 Gig and came in ISO format, which is nice and easy to burn to a disc using the native Win 7 disc burner.

I tried to then install from this disc a few times but it had issues with reading the copy I burned so I decided it would be faster and easier to use a USB stick to install anyway.

I Googled for a ISO to USB installer and got this handy little utility which converts your ISOs to bootable USB sticks http://www.joshcellsoftwares.com/2012/06/WinUSBMaker.html

That worked perfectly and a boot from USB gets the Windows installation up and running.

I've used Win8 Dev and Consumer previews before so I knew what I was in for but I was curious to see if I found the metro interface awkward with a keyboard and mouse.. The final answer is No it was fine.

The shortcuts I think you really need to know at the start are:

1. To switch between desktop and windows 8 interface hit the ole Windows key... easy
2. If you move the mouse to the bottom left of desktop and RIGHT click... you get a sweet shortcut menu to most of your favorite Windows 7 start menu features like Run, CMD and Control Panel... this is super sweet.
3. Start typing in the Windows 8 (Metro) interface and it just auto searches (like the search bar in start menu does in Win 7) - this is actually the best thing ever, in fact when IT nerds discover this they'll probably stop whinging about Win8 interface.

I still find it disconcerting that there is no way simple way to see everything you have open and close them (especially in the touch only interface) like the old task bar (yes I know about the left hand menu but it's not easy) this might lead to some crazy number of apps being open at one time (which I hate)

Anyway I digress... lets develop! One other thing I should point out is that MS have made it so Visual Studio for Windows 8 only runs on Windows 8... this is quite silly in my opinion but I 'm super keen to use Blend so I'm not using anything but that latest version! lets move onto the next part of this blog... Installing Visual Studio 2012 express for Windows 8.

Peace