Microsoft has released Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones, but only for a very small number of low-end devices (Lumia 630, 638, 635, 730, 636, 830), so most of us are out of luck. The reason for this limited initial release is technical in nature.
Some context on why we chose these and not higher end phones like the 930/Icon or 1520: We have a feature that will be coming soon called “partition stitching†which will allow us to adjust the OS partition dynamically to create room for the install process to be able to update the OS in-place. Until this comes in, we needed devices which were configured by mobile operators with sufficiently sized OS partitions to allow the in-place upgrade, and many of the bigger phones have very tight OS partitions.
I only have an HTC 8X, which technically should get Windows 10 eventually, but since it’s not a Microsoft device I doubt it’s very high on the priority list.
This rises the questions, what partitions are good for in a single OS environment at all?
Everybody has encounter this scenario: after a while your, because of updates oder usage, your old partition-scheme does not fit anymore und you have to relay on tools like partition magic or parted to adjust it. if you are lucky your filesystem allows you to adjust your filesystem as well – sometimes only growth is allowed in few cases you can even shrink it. But always you better make a full backup!
Why is there still no filesystem we can trust that far, that partitions are needless?
Edited 2015-02-12 20:16 UTC
You just outlined the whole motivation for partition stitching. It allows space to be reallocated between partitions far more easily.
Partitions are (currently) a unit of administration. On a phone, this might mean you have a readonly OS partition coupled with a writable data partition. It becomes simple to discard user data and restore to a “pristine” state. This could be achieved without partitions, but it becomes more challenging to categorize each file correctly and isolate metadata against potential corruption. Essentially, partitions on embedded devices allow for a solution that is simple and robust, and help defend against winrot type problems which occur when everything is a shared, interoperable space.
This is actually fairly common on Android devices as well. As newer Android versions come out, they need more space on the ‘system’ partition, to hold all new features. Many devices have been locked out of upgrades because there wasn’t an _easy_ solution to this.
Not to mention the lower-end devices, who often ship with a fairly small ‘data’ partition, meaning install a couple of high-end games or big apps and no more apps possible to install for you…
Most vendors have now introduced “partition stitching” into the update process, but still many low-end devices around without….
“most of us” is plain wrong.
Most of Win(P) users use low end devices.
Nokia have (had) 90%+ of Win(P) market share.
Low end was always best selling segment for Nokia.
Hence most users WILL be served by that update.
Lumia 630, 638, 635, 730, 636, 830 are absolutely not 50% of the market. For that you really need the 520 line included.
Also, we are talking about a Technical Preview version of a Phone OS. I think it is fair to say that people that use high-end (enthusiast) devices are far more likely to install a technical preview than people that use low-end devices.
Dunno, read once that 6xx was as popular in my country as 5xx (Poland).
Though, yes 5xx support will be welcomed by large part of Win(P) users.
The 535 is basically the first Microsoft branded Lumia phone… not in the list… quite embarrassing for them, surely?
Its windows phone, they have no shame left.
I interpreted that as “most of us“. The implication being that most readers of this site who did buy a windows phone, would have bought a higher end version.
I also own an 8X, on Verizon. The HTC Update Status page: http://www.htc.com/us/go/htc-software-updates says that the Windows Phone 8.1 update is waiting on certification. My guess is that Verizon is holding it up.
Regardless, they don’t care about the 8X anymore. It’s a shame, too, as it’s a really slick phone. I miss using mine, and I’d love to try out Windows Phone 10 on it… but if they can’t even get WinPho 8.1 on it, I have no hope.
I think that Microsoft is pushing way too hard to roll out these technical previews. Users don’t understand that these are barely betas and that these are not builds that should be running on your daily drivers. I think they should get closer to the mark and just release a technical preview for all models once they have it ready, and then ask for bug checks and interface reviews. It’s almost like Microsoft can’t wait to get to where they want to be, it’s just that damn programming and debugging that has to happen first! Windows phone 8.1.1 runs sweet on my 925, why would I want to mess up my setup?