I would bite a bullet and upgrade it to 64 bits. Full system requirements for developing Windows Phone 8 are here . Besides the need to use the 64-bit version of Windows 8 Pro or later to use the Windows Phone 8 emulator, another "gotcha" needs a processor that supports second level address translation (SLAT).
PCs that support SLAT are Intel-based processors that start with me (for example, i3, i5, i7, i9) or any processors based on Nehalem, Westmere or Sandybridge microarchives.
To determine if your machine supports SLAT, follow these steps:
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