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I wanted to port my Game (XNA 4.0) from WP to Zune HD, so I downloaded the Zune Extensions installer. Unfortunately, Zune App were only supported until XNA 3.1, so I downloaded XNA Game Studio 3.1 and installed it without any errors or problems. But when I launch the Zune Extensions installer, it says that XNA 3.1 should be installed before... -.-

Why can't XNA 3.1 be detected, when 4.0 is installed too? I don't want to deinstall the newer version, I just want to develop a Zune App!

There must be a way to develop for WP and for Zune HD on the same machine, but how?

Cheers

pinckerman
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Cedric Reichenbach
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    You'll probably need to install VS2008 first. I don't see mention of VS2008 in your post, but as far as I'm aware it's required for XNA 3.1 to work correctly with the Zune HD. I KNOW I've gotten the Zune HD development environment up and running with VS2010 and XNA4.0 installed as well. But I also remember having to use VS2008. It's annoying to have 2 copies of VS installed, but that's what you need to do, I think. – A-Type Feb 11 '12 at 03:20
  • Hm, I developed with VS10 express until now and also tried to fix my issue by using VS10 professional. Now I will try to install VS2008 and see what happens... – Cedric Reichenbach Feb 11 '12 at 16:37
  • Ok, both (Zune Extensions & VS2008) installed now, but VS2008 doesn't show me any options about creating an XNA project (neither 4.0 nor 3.1)... – Cedric Reichenbach Feb 11 '12 at 17:16
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    It's probably got to do with VS2010 stealing XNA from 2008. Maybe I'll try to set this up on my computer. I started developing on the Zune HD, it might be fun to give it another go! :) I'll get back to you if I find a setup that works. I'm thinking you'll either have to reinstall XNA 3.1 after 2008, or uninstall 2010 and 4.0 then install 2008, 3.1, Zune Extensions, 2010, and 4.0 in that order (but what a pain that would be). Like I said, I *know* I've done this before, just can't remember how! – A-Type Feb 11 '12 at 18:44

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From what I have heard others say is that it is possible, but rest assured it isn't easy. As of today I never got it working together. The major issue that I faced was with the new release of the development tools for WP7. If you are running older versions of a specific technology, it makes you uninstall it first.

I'm guessing if you do it backwards though you could potentially skip that check. All you would have to do is add the project templates inside of VS2010 (For that matter you could just reference the older version of XNA manually insider your project instead).

But...

I would strongly recommend against using XNA 3.1 for the following reasons:

Edward
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  • Yeah, I know it's dead, and I think it's pretty bold by Microsoft to just ignore Zune HD devices from now on... But I'm one of the rare owners and would like to have my own (already existing) Game on this device. I would still only be coding in XNA 4.0, but port something back into 3.1 if possible. – Cedric Reichenbach Feb 11 '12 at 16:43
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Okay, the devil was in the details...

Instead of installing XNA Game Studio 3.1, I took XNA Framework Redistributable (I don't know why it was on top of Google results)...

With the actual Game Studio 3.1 everything worked fine, i.e. "A-Type" was right:

VS2010 supports XNA 4.0 (exclusively) and VS2008 supports XNA 3.0/3.1 (exclusively).

Unfortunately, to convert a 4.0 Game to 3.1 (for Zune), I will have to create a new Project in VS08 and copy the original files into it by hand.

Peter O.
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Cedric Reichenbach
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  • Not only that, but depending on the type of game you made, you'll have to do a lot of code cleanup and conversion/rewrites. Zune was not a great platform, especially if you don't have the licensed developer tools (I wouldn't imagine you have those, I managed to get them from Dave before Zune died but I don't think I'm legally allowed to pass them around). For one, you can't make 3D games, period. Second, you have to do a hard reset after every run of your homemade app. I'm still kind of hoping in wake of the HD's drop from support that the Zune team will open things up a little more. – A-Type Feb 12 '12 at 21:06
  • Yes, you are right. My game is 2D: [Eat It!](http://www.windowsphone.com/de-CH/apps/13d5968a-cb71-4772-8728-55230d62da74?wa=wsignin1.0). I managed to get it to work with a few minor changes, but unfortunately, when developing for WP7, I was assuming a screen of 800x480 px, so everything's too big now. I'll have to fix that, and I'm not looking forward to it ;-). ...and a hard reset every time. -.- – Cedric Reichenbach Feb 13 '12 at 16:04