No template for Windows Phone 8.1 in Visual Studio Express 2013 with Update 2 RC

Question

I have been developing WP (Windows Phone) 8.0 apps using Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone. To start developing for WP 8.1, I downloaded VS 2013 including update 2 RC from Windows Phone Developer site which is supposed to use to develop WP 8.1 apps.

I've tried twice, but there is no option to create WP 8.1 app even after a successful installation. What I get is only this:

i.e. no option to create Windows Phone 8.1 apps. If it matters, I'm interested in WP 8.1 Visual C# template specifically.

As I've mentioned, since I develop Windows Phone 8.0 apps, therefore Visual Studio Express (2012) for Windows Phone is already installed.

I've already gone through:

WP8 Development on Visual Studio Express 2013
Why is there no Windows Phone version of Visual Studio Express 2013?
Visual Studio 2013 and Windows Phone
How to get started with windows phone SDK 8.1?
WP8 Development on Visual Studio Express 2013

but none address the solution.

Answer 1

Being a windows app developer even I was baffled with the shift in Windows Phone location. You can find it in

Visual C# --> Store Apps --> Windows Phone apps.

Do sign in, in Visual Studio through Microsoft Account then go to ur notification and update ur VS and you will get this screen. Its usually caused due to some updates working only when VS can access developer's account and also I am using VS 2013 pro.

Have you installed Windows phone emulator SDK with the updated emulators?

Answer 2

I finally got the solution.

I downloaded both Visual Studio 2013, and update 2 RC using the /layout switch at command prompt. From MSDN:

After you download the update executable from the MSDN website to a location on your file system, run the following command at a command prompt: /layout.

This command downloads all the packages for the installation. By using the /layout switch, you can download all the installation packages, not just the ones that apply to the download machine. This approach gives you all the files that you need to run this update anywhere and may be useful if you want to install components that weren't installed originally.

To do this, download the Visual Studio 2013, and Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC files (about 2-3 MBs each). Then, create a shortcut of these files on desktop, and then open properties of shortcut. In target field after ", add a space followed with /layout as shown below:

This will download all installation files to your disk and when you install the VS (the exe at specified download folder), it won't ask it to fetch from internet, rather will do it from offline files and phone SDK 8.1 will be installed too.

Please be warned that, this will take a lot of time. To save time, I suggest following what is in Update section.

Update

While searching on internet, I found these two links on Microsoft website:

Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop

Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows with Update 2

In download section, these two sites show that, the offline download option is now available (as evident from the ISOs shown). Though, I don't know if that would help as I haven't tested this option. Just that this option will be much more quicker than using /layout switch.