Here is a simple how-to guide on running Windows Phone 7 Series emulator without having to run the entire Visual Studio 2010 IDE. If you have installed the development tools (including Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows phone), you’ll notice that the .exe file for emulator (xde.exe) is automatically installed in C:\Program Files\Microsoft XDE\1.0\ location. Simply double clicking on Xde.exe file wont start the emulator as it requires some command line parameters.
