How to Install a Third-Party Application on a Windows Phone

Level of difficulty: for beginners. Sometimes a user may need to install a program or game on a smartphone running Windows Phone 8.1, which does not have a high-speed network connection. A typical situation, for example, when there is no Wi-Fi wireless connection at home, but there is a computer connected to the network with a cable. In this case, downloading programs via a mobile connection can be too long and unreasonably expensive, therefore it is better to download the necessary application or game to your desktop or laptop, and then install it on your smartphone as a local file in XAP format.

To install XAP-programs, your smartphone must have support for an external SD-card, which, of course, requires the presence of a sufficient amount of free space. In addition, you will need a computer with Internet access, which will be used to download programs from the Windows Phone Store. If all the necessary conditions are met, then follow these steps.

How to Install a Third-Party Application on a Windows Phone

  1. Open the Windows Phone Application Catalog located on www.windowsphone.com on your main computer.
  2. Select the program you want to install and go to its page in the directory.
  3. Scroll to the bottom. Here, under system requirements and supported languages, you will find the “Download and Install Manually” link.
  4. Save the installation file of the necessary program in any place convenient for you on your hard drive.
  5. Connect your smartphone to the computer via a USB connection.
  6. Transfer the downloaded XAP file to the SD card. This can be done using the system file manager, for example Explorer in Windows or Nautilus in Ubuntu.

After the installation file appears on the memory card of the user’s smartphone, you can disconnect the device from the computer. Then open the “Shop” program and in the lower additional menu (three dots) select “Local Applications”. Pressing it will cause a new window to appear, which displays a list of programs whose files have been downloaded to the memory card. The user can only mark the necessary elements and click the “Install” button.

Please note that this instruction is only suitable for those programs that you downloaded from the official Windows Phone application catalog. All applications installed in the manner described above behave exactly the same as those installed directly from the network, including those that can be automatically updated in case of new versions. As for paid programs, they can also be installed according to the instructions given, but their full use will be possible only after payment.