This is the final how to on Windows Phone in this series where we are going to see the final step in the Windows Phone Application Development which is the Uploading the package to the Windows Phone Market Place. Windows Phone Market place is the centralized market where we can deploy our application that goes through a process of certification. Microsoft Windows Phone Marketplace can be access using the link https://windowsphone.create.msdn.com. As a developer we need to register with the market place to publish our application for download.     [more]

For registration Microsoft provides options for Students, Developers and Business to register as per their requirement with some nominal fees per year of registration. Once we registered with the App Hub the market place for windows phone we can able to upload our application to the market place with ease provided the application should follow some validation procedures which are pre listed by Microsoft. As a developer we need to take care of all the certification procedures, you can get the detailed idea on the certification procedures and requirements in the MSDN link http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=183220. The certification process follows some certain steps which is explained in the below flow diagram.

Now let us see the step by step process on how to publish the application to the Windows Phone Market Place. Once we are done with the design and development of the application we need to build the final version in Release Build and we can see the Application package created in .XAP file which is the extension of the windows phone package accepted in market place. The package will be located in the BIN folder of the project under Release build as shown in the screen below. The below application is build and completed in release mode and we can see the .xap file created with the name of the project.

Now login to the market place and we can see the option to select which type of application we are going to upload to the market place. The account registered here was a developer account so we have a limitation of submitting 100 Free applications and unlimited paid applications as per the standards followed by Microsoft. In the Dashboard click on the Submit App button which is used to submit the application to the market place as shown in the screen below.

Follow the below steps one by one to upload the package to the market, first click on the App Info button that is the first step towards processing the application for certification as shown in the screen below.

Click on the App Info step (Step 1) where we need to provide the application details which are basic selection on the category, application name, price of the application and target market to distribute the application as shown in the screen below.

Next step is to upload the application package (.XAP) file which is available in the bin folder release version. Also provide the different icons and the screen shots that are required and created while we tested in the Windows Phone Store Test Kit as shown in the screens below.

Once we provided all the screen shots and icons with the description we can finally review the application submitted for certification as shown in the screen below.

Clicking on Submit will submit the application to the Marketplace and will take between 3 to 7 days depending on the application capabilities to test and approved to the market. Once the application is approved and available in the market the publisher will be informed through an email with the registered email id which can be used to share the application globally.

Conclusion:

So here we conclude the 101 How to’s on Windows Phone Application development which covers all the major development activities that are required to develop an application from the scratch and upload to the market place easily with using most of the Windows Phone capabilities and features that are available in both Windows Phone 7.1 and Windows Phone 8.0 versions.