Building Windows 8 Metro App on Windows 7 with Visual Studio 2010

Question

My Visual Studio can't seem to build any of the Metro Sample applications. As I've never really used this IDE before, I've pretty much given up.

Can anyone direct me to a sample application that is already built and preferably some source code along with it for reference?

Note:

I have a copy of Windows 7 AND 8. However I can't seem to build Microsoft's File Access Sample in my copy of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. I'm trying to test one of my Win7 applications in Metro mode of Win8 (the application may be called for use during a user's session in a given Metro app).

Answer 1

Metro Apps (that is, applicatons based on WinRT in Windows 8) will not run in Visual Studio 2010. You need Visual Studio 11 express (that comes on the Windows 8 Developer Preview with developer tools English, 64-bit (x64) or Visual Studio 11 developer preview (available for MSDN subscribers)).

Answer 2

According to Getting started with Windows Metro style app development, "To begin building Metro style apps for Windows, you must first download and install the Windows Developer Preview, which includes Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows Developer Preview and the Windows SDK for Metro style Apps."

So I think you'll have to do metro-style development from the Windows 8 Preview for now. That website also has some hello world type stuff and general direction on getting started.