A few days ago, Microsoft released Windows Phone 7.5, also known as Mango, to its developers for testing their applications. It didn’t take long for the hacking community (in the form of Windows HoneHacker.com) to come up with a clever solution to enable the phones of non-developers to upgrade to Mango – and guess what, I did just that. Here are a few thoughts.
Upgrading your non-developer phone to Mango is incredibly easy, but there are a few key concerns you have to think about. First of all, this is a legal grey area, and while Microsoft so far seems to have taken a rather relaxed approach to hacking about Windows Phone 7 – you have been warned. Of course, the usual disclaimers apply: do this at your own risk, you may brick your device, this is not supported by Microsoft, nor they nor I nor WindowsPhoneHacker.com is responsible if this kills your unicorn.
The gist of this ‘hack’ is that it closely resembles the steps registered developers have to take to upgrade their phones to the Mango beta. First, you need to back up your phone, and move this backup to a safe location. The reason for this is that the Mango beta won’t be upgradeable to the final release, so you’ll beed the pre-Mango beta backup to restore your phone before upgrading to Mango final.
Then, your phone will be made eligible to receive beta updates. Your phone will need to be updated to NoDo or beyond, but does not require a developer unlock. You need to install the Windows Phone Support Tool first (32bit, 64bit). WindowsPhoneHacker.com has created a simple tool which will backup your phone, move the backup to a safe location (c:PreMangoState), and make your phone eligible for beta updates. You need to close the Zune program before running Update.bat!
When the process is complete (and this can take a while), you’ll hopefully be running the Mango beta. The first thing you’ll notice is just how damn fast Mango really is compared to NoDo. Applications launch and close instanty, and everything seems just a little bit more responsive. It all adds up though, making the whole feel so much faster.
The new Internet Explorer is also included, and it certainly is a hell of a lot faster than the version included with Windows Phone 7.0. The interface has also been redone, and you now finally have access to the url field in landscape mode. I’m still finding rendering a bit ‘eh’, but maybe it’s simply not yet done. It’s beta, after all.
The multitasking user interface is basically that of webOS but less useful (no grouping, no swipe up to close, and, oh yeah, no true multitasking), and since this is only the first time developers get a taste of Mango, no application supports it yet, turning it into a glorifed recently used applications list.
There’s a lot more stuff in there, but what I like the most are the performance improvements and littl changes and refinements all over the place, which makes using Windows Phone just that little bit more pleasant.
In the past Microsoft probably would have been looking for ways to stop this; At this point, they see to WISH people would want to hack their latest OS onto their devices.
Uhm, no. Microsoft has always silently allowed the ROM community in the Windows Mobile days. Recent actions have shown that Microsoft is willing to continue this policy – they even released a tool to fix phones that had been excluded from updates due to a faulty hack.
You can say about Microsoft what you want, but when it comes to Windows Mobile/Phone, they have a pretty hacker-friendly attitude.
Most companies try acting friendly while their market share is small and they’re trying to build it up… Do you think they would keep this up if they became massively successful?
yes.
cool, excitement about a fringe platform! I guess we get some idea of what nokia might have up and coming.
Thom, you’ve gone wierd and uber corporate on us of late. Buying and reviewing stuff from evil empire one and evil empire two. I guess you can’t discount the sue happy patent conglomerations!
Didn’t you know that Thom has been assimilated by Billborg and St Steve of Cupertino?
Going to give this a try. Sadly I am well aware that all those lovely apps which take advantage of the features are yet to be written… All well, still fun to play! I remember there were days Before I owned a mobile phone, let hope I dont have to relive that part of my past :-p
seems to have worked no issue
see how it holds up tomorrow
Edited 2011-07-05 22:50 UTC
the software is currently Clearly beta standard with a number of ‘features’ still missing. However the most obvious thing at this stage is the speed of the phone since the update. Honestly surprised by the increase. Can’t say for sure yet, but the battery looks to be lasting longer as well! On that basis alone, I’m very much looking forward to Mango being finished.
The headline feature of multitasking is impossible to judge at this point as obviously the apps havent yet been upgraded to take advantage of this feature.
The experience of doing this has now left me fiddling with potential apps (and ideas for apps). I didnt realize the time this would end up taking up :-p
I want to try this when I get my HTC Arrive.
This method worked great on my Dell Venue Pro!