Is it possible to run the Windows Phone 8 simulator directly in OS X?

Question

I'd like to test web sites in Mobile IE. I do not need or want Windows 8 loaded, just Windows Phone 8.

• I understand I can run Windows Phone 8 Simulator inside a Windows 8 VM. That is not my question.
• I understand Windows Phone 8 Simulator is an x86 build of Windows Phone 8. This should, theoretically, make it easier to launch on an x86 Mac within an x86 based virtualization environment.

Can I run Windows Phone 8 on Mac, directly?

Answer 1

Yes, the Windows Phone 8 Simulator / Windows Phone 8 Emulator can run directly in OS X. However the mouse cursor is not visible. Mouse works, but no cursor/circle to show where your pointer is, which makes the VM difficult to use. Windows Phone 8 Simulator does the same thing on Windows when launched in Hyper V Manager (rather than Visual Studio). This may change in future. Keyboard support is fine.

I used VMware Fusion 6.01 / OS X Mavericks.

• Get the Flash.vhd file from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v8.0\Emulation\Images\Flash.vhd inside Windows 8, and copy it to OS X (I used VMware Fusions Sharing feature to set this up quickly)
• Import the VM into VMware Fusion
• Change the CPU and Memory setting to a minimum of 2 cores, 512 MB (Windows Phone 8's mimum requirement). Before I did this, Windows Phone 8 would pause at the boot screen.

Windows Phone 8 will launch.

Keyboard shortcuts are listed at MSDN. Remember to press Fn on your Mac for function keys.

Answer 2

As you don't want to run Windows 8, the response is no, you can't run the emulator directly from Mac OSX. Also the emulator is x64 so you need to have a Windows 8 Pro at least, with HyperV enabled and a CPU SLAT capable.

If you consider the unique option: run Windows 8, you need to verify your processor is SLAT compatible. you can made this going to this page. and searching for your CPU model, in the Advanced technologies section you need to look for Intel VTx and EPT support. If both are supported, you should be able to run windows phone 8 from a Windows 8 machine.