Windows Phone Emulator error, Hyper-V components not running, Windows 8.1 hosted in VMWare Player

Question

Environment:

Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit as host o/s Windows 8.1 Enterprise 64-bit hosted in VMWare Player (current version) Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Phone (Update 4)

I get the following error when trying to run a very simple phone app. I know MS says a VM-within-a-VM environment isn't supported, but I know it can work. Has anyone had success with this? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Windows Phone Emulator

The Windows Phone Emulator wasn't able to ensure the virtual machine was running:

Something happened while starting a virtual machine: 'Emulator WVGA 512 MB.' failed to start. (Virtual machine ID CADD6546-129A-4683-9A2D-52EAE777E888)

The Virtual Machine Management Service failed to start the virtual machine 'Emulator WVGA 512 MB.' because one of the Hyper-V components is not running (Virtual machine ID CADD6546-129A-4683-9A2D-52EAE777E888).

Prior to seeing the error, the emulator emits the on-screen messages:

Loading ...

The Windows Phone OS is starting ...

And then the error. Of all the Hyper-V services available, the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service is the only one which is running.

Answer 1

I've got Windows Phone 8 (and 8.1) emulators working in a VMware Player VM (running Windows 8, obviously) on a Windows 7 host.

You must first check the physical processor supports SLAT. If it does, you can set the "Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD/RVI" in your VM's processor settings (Manage/Virtual Machine Settings/Processors). Then make sure the hypervisor.cpuid.v0 is set to "FALSE" in the vmx file for the VM. (exit VMware player before doing this). And you should be good to go.

See http://developer.nokia.com/community/wiki/Windows_Phone_8_SDK_on_a_Virtual_Machine_with_Working_Emulator for a step-by-step guide on how to do this when creating a new VM.