Runar Ovesen Hjerpbakk

Software Philosopher

Windows Phone 7: 3 small issues

Having just received my HTC 7 Trophy I was eager to see my own programs in action on actual hardware. It was almost plug and play, however a few issues deserves special mention.

Win Phone Dashboard

The Dashboard Error

I have previously created a developer account and installed the tools from Microsoft. Separately, I have created an Xbox Live account. Before debugging my program on the phone, I tried to access the dashboard at the APP HUB. Every time the result was this:

we’re sorry. an error has occurred. We encountered an issue connecting your App Hub account with your Xbox Live Profile. Please visit Xbox.com and update your contact information. After you have updated your contact information, please return to the App Hub ( https://users.create.msdn.com/Register ) to continue.

The Xbox link was dead, and manually adding contact information to my Xbox Live account did not solve anything. After a couple of creative searches the Internet suggested that contact information at https://billing.microsoft.com/ needed to be updated. I have not previously heard of this site, but I logged in anyway.

The billing site revealed two Xbox Live accounts: one personal and one for business. The personal account did not have a registered contact address while the business account did. Filling out the missing information solved the problem and I could access the dashboard as normal.

The Missing Phone Registration

Debug

Now I tried to debug my program on the phone. I plugged the phone into the computer, fired up Zune and Visual Studio and started debugging. No such luck. Visual Studio complained about missing phone registration. I checked with the almighty Internet, which told me that the phone needed to be registered from within Visual Studio.

Reg In vain I searched the menus and buttons looking for this phone registration. As a last resort I took a look at the start menu and found this: Windows Phone Developer Registration. Inputting my Live Id enabled debugging on the device. A much nicer experience than the emulator. Multi touch is just not the same using a mouse.

The Unrelated Zune Issue

I have used my previous phone to listen to podcasts on my way to work. Since you cannot drag and drop files directly to a Windows Phone 7 device, you need to get Zune to recognize the files as podcasts. I have downloaded a few podcasts which would only be imported by Zune if they were put in the music library. Unsatisfactory, as mixing music and podcasts are a not a good solution.

The Internet, again, came up with a solution: tag the mp3s with the genre Podcast. I closed Zune, downloaded MP3TAG, tagged the files and started Zune again. The mp3s in question were immediately recognized as podcasts and my trip to work could finally be combined with the wisdom of The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe