Windows Phone Power Tools

Windows Phone Power Tools is an extension for the Windows Phone SDK, which will be useful not only for developers under Windows Phone, but also for ordinary owners of portable devices based on this operating system. Please note that without the above mentioned development environment on your computer, this application will not work, and the phone itself must be developer-unlocked!

The main task of Windows Phone Power Tools is to install applications from XAP files on a portable device. This is the container format used in Windows Phone. So, developers of mobile applications will be pleased to know that this extension allows you to update an existing developer app from a new XAP file, instead of uninstalling it and installing it again. Thus, you can easily test update scenarios for new versions of applications, finding errors and defects in the update. Windows Phone Power Tools also replaces the command-line IsolatedStorage explorer of the SDK with a visual browser that can upload files to and download files from the isolated storage of an app.

How can this extension help ordinary users? Mainly with the same ability to install applications from XAP files. After downloading a program or game in this container format, you can use Windows Phone Power Tools to deploy it to your developer-unlocked smartphone. The extension also includes the basic functions of an application manager for installed developer apps. For example, it allows you to uninstall individual games and programs, launch and stop them with a couple of clicks, and it shows detailed information about the connected device. The tool is free and open source (Ms-PL) and was created by Nachmore; version 2.5 and later work with the Windows Phone SDK 8.0. It is no longer developed, as Windows Phone itself was discontinued.

Windows Phone Power Tools lets developers and users install, update, launch and manage XAP applications on a developer-unlocked Windows Phone device.