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xnavisual-studio-2013

Device / Emulator option missing in XNA on Visual Studio 2013

Note: I have reviewed all the XNA / VS 2013 related posts on stackoverflow and didn’t find this issue mentioned once.

I have followed various guides and installed XNA Game Studio 4.0 under Visual Studio 2013. All works well, I can open my existing projects and even create new projects. There’s just one little problem: I’m missing the option to RUN / DEBUG the project to Device / Emulator. Instead, I only have default “Start” option available after using which I get an error message saying I cannot run the project type Library.

I’m using Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate.

http://tinypic.com/r/95sx84/5

Solution

  • To fix this issue in Visual Studio 2013:

    1. Make sure your Visual Studio 2013 is turned off.
    2. Locate the *.csproj file of the project you want to run on device.
    3. Backup the original *.csproj file by copying it somewhere.

    4. Edit the file in Notepad. Make sure that the following records are present and set to these values:

      <ProjectTypeGuids>{C089C8C0-30E0-4E22-80C0-CE093F111A43};{fae04ec0-301f-11d3-bf4b-00c04f79efbc}</ProjectTypeGuids>
<SilverlightApplication>true</SilverlightApplication>

    5. Save the changes and open your solution. The type of the project was changed and it should now correctly display the "Device" item in the RUN command.

    Note: In some instances it might be also necessary to delete the solution *.SUO file in order for this fix to work.