Final versions of Windows 8, .NET Framework 4.5 and Visual Studio 2012 now available for download

As announced on the Windows 8 app developer blog, Somasegar’s blog and Jason Zander’s blog, the final versions of Windows 8, the .NET Framework 4.5 and Visual Studio 2012 are now available for developers to download. Here is some information to help you get started installing and using these releases.

Download links

Here are links to help you get started downloading Windows 8:

Here are links to help you get started downloading the .NET Framework 4.5 and Visual Studio 2012:

Documentation links

Here are links to help you get started using Windows 8:

Here are links to help you get started using the .NET Framework 4.5 and Visual Studio 2012:

Important note about installing Visual Studio 2012 on Windows 8

The .NET Framework 4.5 is included as a part of Windows 8, and Visual Studio 2012 requires the .NET Framework 4.5 as a prerequisite.  You can only install the final version of Visual Studio 2012 on the final version of Windows 8 because the final version of Windows 8 is the only one that includes the final version of the .NET Framework 4.5.  This means you cannot install pre-release versions of Visual Studio 2012 on the final version of Windows 8, and you also cannot install the final version of Visual Studio 2012 on pre-release versions of Windows 8.

Notes about XNA Game Studio and Windows Phone development

If you plan to develop games and applications using XNA Game Studio and/or the Windows Phone SDK, there are a couple of important notes to keep in mind:

  1. XNA Game Studio and the Windows Phone SDK 7.1 both work with Visual Studio 2010, not Visual Studio 2012. You will not see any XNA Game Studio or Windows Phone project templates or other functionality for these products in Visual Studio 2012 if you install both products on the same computer. You can safely install Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 2012 side-by-side on the same computer though.
  2. If you try to install XNA Game Studio or the Windows Phone SDK 7.1 on Windows 8, setup may fail. If it does, you can use the workaround at https://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2012/02/29/10274694.aspx to solve the setup failure.