Windows Phone 7.1 SDK Release Candidate (RC) is now available for download. Microsoft released this version with “Go Live” license, that means, you can now build production applications and submit them to the Marketplace. This build also empowers the developer to build applications and games both for WP7.0 and WP7.1 devices.

In this post, find the link to the web installer and standalone/offline installer. Download, install and start building your games or applications.

Overview

The Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Release Candidate includes the following components:

• Windows Phone SDK 7.1 (RC)
• Windows Phone Emulator (RC)
• Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Assemblies (RC)
• Silverlight 4 SDK and DRT
• Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Extensions for XNA Game Studio 4.0
• Microsoft Expression Blend SDK for Windows Phone 7
• Microsoft Expression Blend SDK for Windows Phone OS 7.1
• WCF Data Services Client for Window Phone
• Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone

Download

You can download the Windows Phone 7.1 SDK Release Candidate from one of the following links:

• Download Windows Phone 7.1 SDK (RC) - Web Installer (3.0 MB)
• Download Windows Phone 7.1 SDK (RC) – Standalone or Offline Installer (732.0 MB)

Before installation, make sure that you read the following points:

• If you have earlier version of Windows Phone 7 SDK installed, uninstall it before installing this bits.
• If you don't have Visual Studio installed, this will install the Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone.
• If you already have Visual Studio 2010 installed, make sure that you applied the Service Pack 1 before continuing with the said installation. You can get it from this link "Visual Studio 2010 SP1"
• Make sure that you read the Windows Phone SDK 7.1 (RC) Release Notes

New to Windows Phone 7 Development?

Don’t forget to read my tutorial series “31 Days with WP7 - A Collection of Windows Phone 7 (Mango) Tutorials”.