The Windows Phone 8 SDK has been released, and running the emulator for Windows Phone 8, requires that your PC has Second Level Address Translation (SLAT). This in turn needs Hyper-V.

If you have read my blogs before, you will know I am a great fan of VMware, and use it for development systems, but you can't run VMware with Hyper-V, as VMware refuses to start if it detects Hyper-V.

So, if I want to run VMware, I can't run Hyper-V, and if I run Hyper-V then I can't run VMware. An ideal solution would be to convert my VMware machines to Hyper-V machines, but I can't do this, as I use them for Windows Mobile development, and need USB support to attach my Windows Mobile devices. So - what to do?

After some research, I found it is possible to turn Hyper-V on and off, but you need a reboot after you have done this. I created a couple of batch files, HyperVOn and HyperVOff.

HyperVOn contains:-
cd c:\
bcdedit /set {current} hypervisorlaunchtype auto
@Echo Off
SET /P ANSWER=Do you want to reboot now (Y/N)?
if /i {%ANSWER%}=={y} (goto :yes)
if /i {%ANSWER%}=={Y} (goto :yes)
goto :no
:yes
shutdown -r
:no
exit

HyperVOff contains:-
cd c:\
bcdedit /set {current} hypervisorlaunchtype off
@Echo Off
SET /P ANSWER=Do you want to reboot now (Y/N)?
if /i {%ANSWER%}=={y} (goto :yes)
if /i {%ANSWER%}=={Y} (goto :yes)
goto :no
:yes
shutdown -r
:no
exit

These use bcdedit to change the Boot Configuration Data. Right-click on the files, and 'Run as Administrator'. The files will prompt you to reboot. So to run VMware run HyperVOff, and to run VS2012 for Windows Phone 8 with emulator support, then run HyperVOn.

Alternately, you could dual boot the system. To do this, first of all run the command prompt as administrator, and then key in

bcdedit /copy {default} /d "Boot without Hypervisor for VMware"

This will return you a GUID in the format {1xxx2x34-567x-89x0-1234-x56789x01x2x}

using this GUID key in

bcdedit /set {1xxx2x34-567x-89x0-1234-x56789x01x2x} hypervisorlaunchtype off

When you reboot, you will be presented with 2 options - Windows 8 and Boot without Hypervisor for VMware

Alternately you can use the excellent EasyBCD from NeoSmart

Using either of these techniques should make it easier to develop for Windows Phone 8 and use VMware 

Originally posted 1/Nov/2012