Windows Phone Unlock Tool Goes Official

judgecorp writes "A tool to unlock (or 'jailbreak' if you like) Windows Phone devices is now available with Microsoft's blessing. ChevronWP7 Labs was withdrawn at Microsoft's request a year ago, but is back now, allowing users to run any app on their phones for a cost of $9."

Comments

Seriously?

[masternerdguy]

It's sad when Microsoft is more forward thinking than Apple isn't it.

Re:Seriously?

[nepka]

Microsoft has always been. Windows is practically open platform and the mobile versions have always been too. Not in the open source sense, but users are free to install and do what they want. Apple is the only company that wants to control that.

Re:Seriously?

[h4rr4r]

BullFuckingShit. Very few android phones have unknown sources blocked and all those can have apps installed in other ways.

When I can do a git of the Windows phone code, then it is starting to get close.

Re:Seriously?

[nepka]

Losing to what? Windows market share has been really stable for like 15 years. OSX has gained some market share, but even that is tiny compared to Windows (especially outside US). Linux market share has always been around 0.5% and isn't changing anytime soon. Windows has so large market share (over 90%) that they really cannot get it much higher.

Re:Seriously?

[MrHanky]

Ah, losing market share. What I find funny is that Windows 7 caught up to Windows XP's user share (according to StatCounter) in just six months more than the iPad used to catch up with Linux's (both happening pretty much at the same time, around these days). That's with Microsoft supposedly losing and the iPad supposedly heralding the post-PC era. I'd love to be losing like Microsoft.

Re:Seriously?

[MrHanky]

Christ. Here's the Git repo and download instructions. Google did ask CyanogenMod to stop distributing its Google apps (Market, etc.), but not Android itself. You can download those apps separately, and I'm sure Google could restrict those devices from using Market if they tried. Perhaps your mother should have taught you not to lie.

Re:Worst Possible Option

[nepka]

1) App market works just like before
2) The $9 price tag isn't from Microsoft, it's from the guy who made the unlocker. He is selling it.

Re:Wow, I would not have believed this a decade ag

[im_thatoneguy]

You would not have expected Microsoft a decade ago to release an open operating system while Apple released a vertically integrated and closed down market?

Microsoft is many things, but bending over backwards to let anything run on their systems (including malware) has been one of the greatest strengths and weaknesses since the beginning.

Re:What does it not do that the previous version d

[cbhacking]

Unfortunately, there's a barrier in Mango (whether you use the marketplace developer account dev-unlock, which has been available from day 1, or ChevronWP7 Labs which is essentially the same thing from the phone's perspective) that prevents apps from getting high-permission access (specificlaly, prevents opening a handle on a driver, which is the standard way to break out of the low-privilege app sandbox on WP7). To do this, an app needs to specify the "INTEROPSERVICES" capability in its manifest, and by default Mango blocks installing or running non-marketplace apps with this capability. NoDo and below did not - that's how people were able to do file browsers, registry editors, tethering apps, and so forth - but this restriction is part of Mango.

You can still run some homebrew apps, including native code, but only with low permissions. While it's useful to know there's limits on what an app can do, I'd really like to be able to remove those limits on apps I trust. A webserver that demonstrates access to the full socket API, including TCP server sockets (the official API only has client sockets) is cool, but there's a lot more that you could do.

Fortunately, there's a way around this restiction also built into the OS. The process of removing this restriction is called "interop-unlock" by the guys who discovered it, and is possible easily on LG phones (change the MaxUnsignedApp registry value to 300 or more using the built-in registry editor), possible on Samsung phones (instructions and app here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1271963), and difficult if possible at all on HTC phones (requires rolling back to pre-Mango, which isn't possible on new devices). No solution at all for Dell, Toshiba, or Nokia yet.