Class Library Support for Windows Phone

Microsoft Silverlight will reach end of support after October 2021. Learn more.

Silverlight for Windows Phone OS 7.1 is based on Silverlight 4. Some Silverlight features and corresponding APIs are not supported in Silverlight for Windows Phone. For a summary of the supported features, see Features Differences Between Silverlight and Silverlight for Windows Phone. This topic describes some of the differences in class library support between the different versions of Silverlight and how to use the library reference to determine whether a property, method, or event is supported on Windows Phone.

This topic contains the following sections:

  • Using the Reference Documentation

  • Silverlight Extensions for Windows Phone

  • Additional Types Supported on Windows Phone Only

  • Additional Members Supported on Windows Phone Only

  • Unsupported Assemblies and Namespaces

  • Unsupported Types

Using the Reference Documentation

When you view topics in .NET Framework Class Library for Silverlight, you can use any of the following methods to find more information about whether a member is supported for use with Windows Phone applications and how the member behaves in Windows Phone applications.

  • Look for Windows Phone icons Silverlight for Windows Phone in the member page lists. For an example of a member page list with the icon, see ListBox.

    NoteNote:

    For a few members, the Version Information may list the member as supported in Windows Phone OS 7.1 but although the member is present in Windows Phone OS 7.1, it is not actually supported for use in a Windows Phone application. Look at the Version Notes or Platform Notes sections for complete information about how the member behaves on Windows Phone OS 7.1.

  • See the Version Information section at the bottom of each reference page. For types and members present in Silverlight for Windows Phone, there is an entry under Silverlight for Windows Phone and the section will specify Windows Phone OS 7.0 and/or Windows Phone OS 7.1. The following image shows an example of the Version Information section for IDictionary

    Version Information section

  • For behavior specific to Windows Phone, look for the Silverlight for Windows Phone Silverlight for Windows Phone section in the Version Notes or Platform Notes sections in reference topics.

  • For differences listed by feature, see Implementation Differences Between Silverlight and Silverlight for Windows Phone.

Silverlight Extensions for Windows Phone

There are some additions to Silverlight that are supported in Windows Phone applications only. To view the documentation for Silverlight extensions that are available for Windows Phone, see the Class Library Reference for Windows Phone.

Additional Types Supported on Windows Phone Only

There are some types that are supported on Silverlight for Windows Phone, but are not supported in Silverlight for the desktop. The following is a list of types that are supported on Silverlight for Windows Phone only.

Additional Members Supported on Windows Phone Only

The following members support manipulation events, which are supported on Silverlight for Windows Phone but are not supported in Silverlight for the desktop.

Unsupported Assemblies and Namespaces

The following assemblies and namespaces are not supported on Windows Phone in this release. This list includes assemblies that are provided with the Silverlight SDK and some additional assemblies. Also, there are some additional namespaces that are not supported, even though they ship in supported assemblies.

Unsupported Types

Types from the following sources are not supported for use in Windows Phone applications.

  • Types in unsupported assemblies

  • Types in unsupported namespaces

  • Types used in unsupported features

  • Types added in Silverlight 5

You can typically determine whether a type is supported by using IntelliSense in Visual Studio. When you use Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, only supported types should appear in IntelliSense. For more information about determining whether a specific type is supported using the documentation, see Using the Reference Documentation earlier in this topic.

See Also

Other Resources