Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta was released yesterday at the Microsoft World Partner Congress. Basically, this release means the toolset and runtime apis are pretty much feature complete.

If you're developing for Windows Phone 7 (WP7), upgrade to the latest tools.  If you're not developing for WP7, well, that's a different issue.

If you installed the CTP of the Developer Tools, you'll need to remove the existing tools to proceed. To do this click Start :: Control Panel :: Uninstall a Program :: choose "Microsoft Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP - ENU" and uninstall the software.

CTP WANT TO REINSTALL ON UINSTALL - Occasionally there will be an error uninstalling the tools where it actually looks like the CTP wants to reinstall itself instead of uninstall. This is basically an issue where the tools can't uninstall as they dont have the msi's available anymore. Let the re-install of the CTP complete, then run the uninstall again. If the process still doesn't work then uinstall all the Silverlight runtimes and SDKs, and repeat the uninstall process for the CTP.

XNA TOOLS WONT UNINSTALL - Occasionally the XNA tools will just flat out NOT uninstall. If this is the case, you may want to try using the XNA Studio Cleanup Tool from http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2009/04/10/9544320.aspx  .

STILL DOESNT WORK - Aaron Stebner has written the definitive post on hacking it out. Go to this post to read more - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2010/07/12/10037442.aspx

Once your uninstall is complete (or you just didn't have any CTP tools installed), its time to install the beta tools. Best bet is to hit the "get the tools" link at http://developer.windowsphone.com  .

Once the beta tools are installed, there are some great learning resources such as ebooks and videos at http://developer.windowsphone.com  . Also download the Windows Phone Training Kit from its homesite or the direct download link and work through the labs.

If you're a WP7 dev in Florida, let me know - http://www.devfish.net/fullblogitemview.aspx?blogid=754. For devfish's favorite WP7 links go here - http://dfwiki.devfish.net/technology.Windows-Phone-7-0.ashx.