I'm trying to find information on how to get started with developing for windows 8.1 tablets. My goal is to create a program that access a SQL database on a server and fills a list, it checks for updates periodically, but before I get to programming I need to know what is needed in order to develop for a tablet.
Can I use windows 7 to develop the app for a windows 8.1 tablet
Can I use visual studio 2010 to develop or would I have to upgrade
What would I need to download to visual studio in order to develop, test the apps, or emulate the tablet
From what I've been reading online I may need visual studio 2013+ and windows 8.1, but I'm not entirely sure if that is true.
Compatibility
You can't open a Windows Store App project for Windows 8.1 on a Windows 7
Visual Studio 2013+ is clearly a better fit than it's predecessors. Just take a look at when Windows 8.1 came out :
Knowing that why take any risks in compatibility as VS Express does the job and is free anyways ?
Service Reference
As for your Database on a server you can access it using a
Service Reference. To get started on this go take a look at My question and answer which gives a general idea of how the interaction with a service happens.Now that you saw how the general interaction from client to server happens (some details are left out but you should be able to figure it out with some research) all you need to know is how to interact from your
Service ReferencetoSQL Server, for example.Testing on your tablet
There is an emulator that can be used in visual studio to run the program as if it was on a tablet. If you want to actually test it on your tablet then you can do a
Side Loadwhich installs the application on your windows tablet.To learn about side loading go take a look at my answer Here