Unable to Launch Windows Phone Emulator

Question

I am trying to run unit tests on our CI server. When i run the following command it tries to launch emulator but fails with the following message

vstest.console.exe myxapfile.xap

Error Message

The Windows Phone Emulator wasn't able to ensure the virtual machine was running:

Something happened while starting a virtual machine: 'Emulator WVGA 512MB.ttmaltiparmak' failed to start. (Virtual machine ID 1350ADCE-CC35-4615-BFD5-250179F789EE)

The Virtual Machine Management Service failed to start the virtual machine 'Emulator WVGA
512MB.ttmaltiparmak' because one of the Hyper-V components is not running (Virtual machine ID
1350ADCE-CC35-4615-BFD5-250179F789EE).

My system seems to support following requirements (But it is a virtual machine is it a problem?)

• 64 bit windows 8
• SLAT Support
• 4 GB ram
• Hyper-V is on

Further trials and results:

I tried removing and re-adding hyper-v through add-remove programs and now Hyper-V Platform option is disabled and i can not activate it :S Gilson Banin says that hyper-v installation is not possible on virtual machines, as i mentioned before our server is a virtual machine is it right that i cant use hyper-v on a virtual machine?

http://blogs.technet.com/b/gbanin/archive/2013/06/26/how-to-install-hyper-v-on-a-virtual-machine-in-hyper-v.aspx

The answer given on MSDN: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/wpapps/en-US/083c8964-071f-469a-8740-2412a69092fc/unable-to-launch-windows-phone-emulator?forum=wptools

Answer 1

I had the same problem. This fixed it.

Shut down the VM, select option “Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or ARM-V/RVI” in the vm processor settings.

Then add these two lines to the end of the vmx-file:

hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = "FALSE"
mce.enable = "TRUE"

Start the VM, add the Hyper-V components and restart the vm. Next time you start the emulator, Visual Studio will configure Hyper-V and run the emulator

Answer 2

Just copy your vhd and other files from the vhd location to another folder. Just create another a new VM with the VHD which you just copied. Now it will start.

Answer 3

After enabling support for VTx in your BIOS, you might want to check your system by running the Codeinfo tool.

Also, don't forget to enable "Hyper-V Management Tools" and "Hyper-V Platform" on "Control Panel->Programs and Features->Turn Windows Features on of off->Hyper-V":

I am running Windows 8 64 bit inside VMware player on top of a windows 7 machine. Also had problems running the emulator from windows phone 8, and solved them by following this guide: http://developer.nokia.com/Community/Wiki/Windows_Phone_8_SDK_on_a_Virtual_Machine_with_Working_Emulator

Hope it helps...

Answer 4

Select the Emulator VM you are going to use in Windows 8 Phone development (default one is “Emulator WVGA 512MB”). Go to the Hyper-V VM settings and change the number of processors from 2 to 1. Press Apply and than OK in order to apply new settings.

If on a Mac or virtual machine ..

Or try to see the other solutions in this link:

Running Windows 8 Phone emulator in the Windows 8 virtual machine Problem

I really hope this link link can help you a less ;-)

Answer 5

Add these two lines to the end of the vmx-file:

hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = "FALSE" mce.enable = "TRUE"