Windows 8 Developer License

What are the ways by which I can obtain a longer Developer License (more than 3 months) to Develop Windows 8 store apps by using Visual Studio 2012?


Solution 1:

Alternative ways to manage your developer license

You can also use PowerShell to install and manage developer licenses. Just open a PowerShell command window with administrative privileges (important!) and use the following common commands:

C:\PS> Get-WindowsDeveloperLicense (Gets or renews the license)

C:\PS> Unregister-WindowsDeveloperLicense  (Unregisters the license. You should Unregister licenses after you are done testing.)

C:\PS> Show-WindowsDeveloperLicenseRegistration (Shows license information)

You can use the Visual Studio 2012 Store menu’s Obtain Developer License command.

Getting a developer license using Visual Studio 2012 RC is very simple. Go to the Project menu, select Acquire Developer License on the Store sub menu. ( If you are using Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 RC for Windows 8, click Store > Acquire Developer License.)

You would need to sign-in with your Live Id (Microsoft Account) to get a license. Check out


You can extend your license for as many times as you want so I gues when it expires just extend it again. Source

Solution 2:

How to get a developer license is described in detail here.

Get a developer license (Windows Store apps)

As of now, there is no option to change the duration of developer license. However, the duration also depends on license/validity of Visual Studio. So check that once.

In case of License renewal, you can do it from within Visual Studio in the same manner. The only difference is in the initial popup.

Get Developer License

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Renew Developer License

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Solution 3:

You can extend the License from Visual Studio 2012 after expiry it will ask for a renewal

Solution 4:

In order to Develop Store apps you need Developer license ,no license is required for Desktop app.

Check this Detail from Microsoft

A developer license for Windows 8 lets you install, develop, test, and evaluate Windows Store apps before the Windows Store tests and certifies them. Developer licenses are free, and you can get as many as you need if you already have a Microsoft account. You don’t need a Store account to get a developer license, but there might be advantages to having this kind of account. For example, you qualify for a longer developer license if you have a Windows Store account

Solution 5:

VS 2012 License cannot be extended for longer time... after 3 months it gets renewed. You get a token for Free developer license when it expires but it does not stop you to Develop because the process is very simple. You need to just respond to popup.