This Toolkit is now deprecated and is now

superseded by Windows Azure Mobile Services

During the early previews of Windows 8, the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8 provided developers with the first support for building backend services for Windows Store apps using Windows Azure.  The main areas of feedback we received from mobile developers was that they wanted a turn-key set of services for common functionality such as notifications, auth, and data.   Windows Azure Mobile Services directly reflects this feedback by enabling developers to simply provision, configure, and consume scalable backend services. The downloads for this toolkit will be removed on the week of Feb 1st 2013.  Future improvements will be channeled into Windows Azure Mobile Services rather than this toolkit. 

To get started with Mobile Services, sign up for a Windows Azure account and receive 10 free Mobile Services.

How to Obtain Namespace and Management Keys

The Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8 ACS sample contains a setup tool that automates the ACS namespace configuration to allow the sample to run. By running it, the application will be ready to authenticate users from Windows Live ID, Google and Yahoo right out of the box.

In order to accomplish this, you need to have an active subscription with ACS; furthermore, the setup tool needs to acquire some information about your ACS namespace.

If you need to create an ACS namespace, please refer to the walkthrough here. Note that you only need to follow the sections titled “Accessing the AppFabric Portal” and “Service Namespace Creation”; the setup tool will take care of the rest for you.

The ACS Namespace field expects the unique string you chose as your namespace.

The Management Key can be obtained by going to https://{MYNAMESPACE}.accesscontrol.windows.net/v2/mgmt/web/ServiceAccount/ManagementKey/Edit. Make sure to substitute {MYNAMESPACE} with your ACS namespace, then click Symmetric Key and copy the content of the Key field.