Develop Reference

Creating graphs for both WP7 & WP8

My question is really: Is there an easy way to create graphs in windows phone? (Either in-built or for free)
Could you tell me of any using statements I need to add
Links would be helpful (I couldn't find many myself)
And a basic how-to would be excellent!

The Telerik RadControls produce great graphs - http://www.telerik.com/products/windows-phone.aspx
They also have a WP App that showcases their controls - http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/telerik-examples/fd55f526-d6f7-df11-9264-00237de2db9e

The Telerik RadControls are not free but they are by far, 100%, the best tools on the market. You can get them for free though if you have a couple apps published.
Go to http://www.Dvlup.com and sign up for a free Nokia Developer Account. Link in your developer account and it will import the apps you have made. Then you can submit apps you have made to the challenges they have on there.
As you can see here you can get a Nokia Premium Account Token for 1000pts which is VERY easy to get. With that token you get a free Windows PHone Developer account ($100 value) and a slew of other things like support tokens, Buddy API calls ect. I heard on the Windows Developer Show That you also get a free set of RadControls with this token right now also.

There are lot's of libraries that provide charts for Phone 7 and 8
http://www.infragistics.com/products/windows-phone/features/sparkline/ (Paid)
https://github.com/ailon/amCharts-Quick-Charts (free)
http://www.telerik.com/products/windows-phone/overview/all-controls/chart.aspx (Paid)

Also, other than those listed above, there is a Sparrow Toolkit.
Sparrow Toolkit a set of Data Visualization controls(Chart, Gauge,BulletGraph and Sparkline) with lot of flexibility, performance, faster and more efficient.
http://sparrowtoolkit.codeplex.com/

Windows Embedded Compact 7: Developing?? Visual Studio 2010?? Templates?

I would like to develop for Windows Embedded, but can't find any easy tutorials.
I have looked here and here
Does it just work on Silverlight, or something special?
There doesn't seem to be any templates for VS 201

start here
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/develop/windows-embedded-products-for-developers.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usisvde/archive/2009/08/11/windows-embedded-development-center-updated-on-msdn.aspx
search MSDN, you will find what you are looking for

Here is a step by step tutorial by Samuel Phung:
The Windows Embedded Compact 7 (Compact 7) getting started series is
created to provide simple and easy to follow information to help
academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to learn and engage in
Compact 7 development.
http://www.embedded101.com/Compact7
Also his book:
http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Windows-Embedded-Compact-7/dp/1118050460

C# GUI Programming Starting

So....I've never really done much in the way of GUI programming apps. Namely because for school ive been stuck in C++ land. But since Im graduating in December I thought it'd be nice (while im looking for a job) to study something I've wanted to look into for awhile. And please dont mark this as "subjective" im just simply asking what I need to "know" to get started.
Namely GUI programming. Im not used to it....nor have I really ever been. It's not something they focus on in school (for instance my senior design was a webcam mouse thing, but had very little in the way of GUI)
I've seen alot about C# being the superior GUI programming tool for fast development.....but I dont really know whats out there. I know "of" QT, and Im used to C++. However Im not too familiar with what the "choice" GUI language is. I do like programming on Windows however most of my stuff has been in Unix here lately (Mostly because of my OS class).
I dont know anything about .net, and i've heard of something called WPF? Is that part of .net.....or.....what? Im just a bit confused at where to start.
Thanks

Microsoft has some good resources for getting started on their platform with .NET.
Try these...
Development for Beginners
Welcome to the Windows Development track. This is the best place to learn how to create software for Windows. Windows applications can take advantage of your computer's sound, graphics, and other capabilities. You will learn how to write software for Windows XP, Vista, or Windows Server using Visual Basic, Visual C#, or Visual C++ Express Editions.
Ramp Up
Ramp Up is a free, online, community-based learning program that will help you build professional development skills. Join Ramp Up (it's free!) and help advance your career...
Creating Your First Visual C# Application -
This link contains three samples:
How to: Create a C# Console Application
How to: Create a C# Windows Forms Application
How to: Create a C# WPF Application
Visual C# Guided Tour
The Visual C# Guided Tour presents a series of lessons that introduce you to the Visual C# Express Edition integrated development environment (IDE), creating your first application, and designing the user interface of an application.
Learn .NET Framework on MSDN
Start here to get a conceptual overview of the key features of the .NET Framework, including the common language runtime, the .NET Framework class library, and more.

Yeah.... C# is a great tool for GUI.... My condition was same like yours when I started.... My suggestion is get into it.... Make some simple GUIs.... Its fun to make simple apps like say Calculator!
There are very good tutorials available on internet.... You are just a Google away from them.... And For everyproblem, There is Stack Overflow! :)
All the best!!
You can check this too: C# GUI primer tutorial

WPF is pretty awesome. It is rather closely related to xml.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa663364.aspx
If you use the toolbox its mostly self explanatory for the basic components. Here are components of a basic page.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb531270(VS.90).aspx

You have two choices to go with:
Windows Forms (WinForms)
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
For all future desktop GUI applications, WPF is recommended.

How to set windows 7 like look of desktop application (c#.net)

my client is asking for windows 7 like look for my desktop application (developed in c#.net). please tell me how can i set such theame for my application so that i would look like windows 7... please tell me if any such a controls/theme available... (open source is prefered)... please help me out.. i am using .net framework 3.5... and i am not familer with WPF

My suggestion would be the DevExpress Winforms/WPF components, they look awesome, have great support and are quite easy to use.

First of all: use WPF, they look a lot better.
Second of all: The WPF Toolkit contains lots of useful stuff to create nice UIs.
Lastly: in .NET 4.0 you can create jumplists, icon overlays and stuff like that. If you're using 3.5 then there is the Windows API codepack which you can use for these features.

How to read installer shortcuts with C# (WPF)

Background: I've decided to teach myself C# through WPF, and I'm writing a small application that needs to get a list of Start Menu shortcuts and their targets and store them. Basically, I'm trying to take all the shortcuts and put their target applications' paths into memory. However, I've run into a problem trying to read Windows Installer shortcuts (the ones that point to something like C:\Windows\Installer\{90120000-0030-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}\wordicon.exe -- Microsoft Office is a good example of this). I did some research and it seems that Windows uses some behind-the-scenes magic involving the Registry to find the actual location of the file.
Question: How can I get the actual target of these Windows Installer shortcuts in C#? A lot of sources I've found point me to the IShellLink interface, but I don't know how to use it with C#. I'd prefer to use Windows API calls (or, even better, a .NET library) instead of manually looking through the Registry, but I'll take any guidance on the issue.

After doing more research, I found an easy answer here. It's basically using a combination of the MsiGetShortcutTarget and MsiGetComponentPath functions of msi.dll.

I'm afraid IShellLink IS the Windows API for using shell links! The Shell API is heavily COM-based.
But the good news is that COM interop works very well in .NET. This site is usually a very good resource:
http://www.pinvoke.net/default.aspx/Interfaces/IShellLinkA.html