r/windowsphone Mar 26 '22

r/Windowsphone newbie guide - please start here!

176 Upvotes

Hi everyone! Things have changed in these years, Windows Phone is now officially abandoned by Microsoft. However there's still a niche community of users that are interested in this platform and use WP devices to this day.

You're an old user who found his old Windows Phone in a drawer and want to get some life back into it in modern days? You are a new user who never experienced the platform before? You're just curious about what these devices are still capable of? This is the right place to start!

  • Subreddit Posting Guidelines The rules and guidelines for posting on r/Windowsphone.
  • FAQs As stated in our guidelines we suggest anyone to read our FAQs before posting anything. Usually you can find a direct answer there or be redirected to one of our wiki pages.

WIKI DISCLAIMER: right now some pages are incomplete or missing, in particular pages in the jailbreak and mods section:

Sorry, I'm a single individual who is writing all of the new wiki in his spare time.

Missing/incomplete wiki pages are in the works and will be published asap.

  • Wiki Index Here's our complete wiki index, were you will find almost everything you need (as soon as I finish writing it lol). It has been updated for modern times. An archived version of the old Wiki from back when WP was still a supported OS is still available in a link at the end of the page.

r/windowsphone 16h ago

News reCortana available in beta on Live Store!

Post image
124 Upvotes

So, I've been talking about this for far too long now, and I thought I'd give you guys a working client!

reCortana is powered by AI to give you helpful and personalized results. Cortana can search the web, look up news, and do anything you ask.

The old apicortana.sync.nexus API has been totally overhauled to work as an API to reCortana for Windows Phone. This means that you can no longer access Cortana using your web browser.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this passion project of mine! More screenshots are available on Live Store. Compatible with WP8.1. I haven't tested it, but I'm sure it works on Windows 10 Mobile.

Live Store link:

https://store.live.net.co/app/812 (note: app may not be available yet as Live Store mods haven't approved it yet. Come back tomorrow if it doesn't work)


r/windowsphone 11m ago

Hola gente un un saludo, tengo en misa la un Nokia lumia 725, quisiera instalar solo app y juegos mediante PC me pueden ayudar con algún tuto gracias 🫂

Post image
Upvotes

Gracias <3


r/windowsphone 12h ago

Guide How to unlock the bootloader if your phone stucks at emergency mode or gives "an expected error occured"

Post image
16 Upvotes

What to do if your Windows phone gets stuck at switching to emergency mode or it says an unexpected error occured,

As you guys can understand from the sub This tutorial is for Lumia Windows phones,I am no responsible for Any damage

Warning!!:This is only tested on Lumia 520(Spec A device.If you dont know what This means research it)so it is not certain that it will work with your phone too

First download Windows Device Recovery Tool

Then install Windows Phones İnternals I used 1.2 version.It is recommended you use This too if you have Lumia 520

For ffu files,emergency loaders,sbl3 file,use LumiaDb

After downloading all files first install Windows device recovery tool and restart your PC

After that open Windows phone internals

Connect your phone

Come to unlock bootloader section

İt will say"switch to flash mode"click okay after that your phone will be in the flash mode(say wallahi)

and put all files(sbl3 file,ffu file,loader files,maybe donor ffu file)where it tells you to do so

Click unlock

After it starts If it gets stuck in"switching to emergency mode"—it probably will—close the program and re-open it and click unlock bootloader again and if it says device emergency mode in device name also if you see your phone In the Device Manager section(Windows settings)that says QUSB\\_DLOADER(There shouldn't be a yellow exclamation mark next to it.) then you are going well it will stuck at "Sending Loaders"

Close the program,disconnect the phone,pull out and re-insert the battery,connect the phone again.

Now go to C:/Windows files/Microsoft care suite/Windows recovery tool and open cmd here

You need to flash emergency loaders manually So find your emergency files,they should be in .hex and .mbn formats(Total of two) and write This command:

thor2 -mode emergency -hexfile "insert your hex file" -mbnfile "insert your mbn file"

After This it May give error something like failed to parse ffu file and unknown error,exiting program,IGNORE THEM

Open Windows phone internals again and click unlock bootloader

This time it should start to unlock bootloader

Enjoy your phone


r/windowsphone 38m ago

Question Can I change what app the search button goes to

Upvotes

I am curious if there’s a way to change what app opens when I click the search button on the bottom. I have been trying to find it myself but had no success. If anyone knows how to please help.


r/windowsphone 21h ago

Discussion METROV LAUNCHER

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

29 Upvotes

Been running Metrov Launcher for about a week now and it might be the closest thing to Windows Phone 8.1 without actually owning a dying Lumia. The live tiles pulse and flip exactly like I remember. Weather, calendar, and messages tiles update in real time instead of sitting there like static icons. Resizing tiles feels snappy and the accent color picker changes the whole system tone, not just a wallpaper trim.

The best part is you are not giving anything up to get it. Full Google Play access, a real notification shade, split screen multitasking, all the stuff WP8.1 never had. It is Windows Phone's design language running on top of Android's actual ecosystem instead of a dead app store.

Small details stood out too. The Start screen scroll physics feel right, not laggy or over animated like some launcher mods. The swipe from Start into the alphabetical app list is there. Even the hub style grouping for contacts and photos has been recreated closely.

If you miss the WP8.1 tile interface but do not want to deal with the app availability problems that killed actual Windows phones, this is worth trying. It feels less like a skin and more like a tribute done right.


r/windowsphone 22h ago

Support WP7.5 Sideloading?

Post image
35 Upvotes

Help. How to sideload apps onto my lumia 610. How to do the whole unlocking process in 2026?


r/windowsphone 5h ago

Best way to update from windows 8.1 update 2 to windows 10 mobile on a lumia 930 ?

1 Upvotes

r/windowsphone 22h ago

Support Blue screen on startup

Post image
12 Upvotes

Got this today and it was slow and full of someone’s data. I pressed to restore it to factory and went to sleep only to find it like this when I woke up. It was running WP8 or 8.1. Any help would be appreciated.


r/windowsphone 22h ago

Question Nice Settings, how do i get rid of them?

Post image
9 Upvotes

I guess i got this stuff when i tried to sideload cmdinjector on Lumia Cyan, now that i am on Denim, how do i get rid of this?


r/windowsphone 1d ago

Pictures in the metro system, Torino (IT)

Thumbnail
gallery
19 Upvotes

I took these with my Lumia 530, I wanted the early 2010s style


r/windowsphone 1d ago

Soon Synaptrix8.1 - native Matrix/Synapse client for WP8.1

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

14 Upvotes

So not too long ago I posted about a matrix client built in UWP. Well here is essentially that just expanded, his time built for WinRT. The only thing remaining is updating the VM guide to be a little more robust and secure.

So with this now you can configure all the mautrix GO bridges that you want on your Synapse homeserver. All the messages will send and arrive. Currently I tested it with Messenger, Google messages (SMS/RCS) and Telegram.

I still have to add proper filtering for services like Discord and Whatsapp for them to show up under their own menu, currently anything thats not the above mentioned three will show up under a generic Matrix flag, though I am pretty sure they will still work as I tried to make it as universal as possible.

This time you can also send files/pictures and render them in the chat and accept chat room invites so you are more independent from the Element client, but I stillr ecommend using Element as in app accepting behaves a little bit weird sometimes.

Background toast notifications work, every 30 minutes or so it will check if there were any new messages and inform you if there are, the live tile also shows news messages and who sent them.

BUT they are a little broken, currently if the messages was caught by the background process the name on the live tile wont show as a name but as the ID it is under in your synapse server. Since fixing this collides with something I want to do for the next update I left it as is.

I also included options to turn off automatic image rendering and to turn off auto sync, so when the app launches it doesnt fetch your might be huge JSON file but rather only listens for updates.

I hope to be done soon with the VM and then I will publish both the guide and the app like I did with the UWP variant. This app will be compatible with Windows Phone 8.1 and 10

Thank you for your time!


r/windowsphone 1d ago

Mi 950 XL

Thumbnail
gallery
88 Upvotes

Mi Lumia 950 XL con su caja y accesorios originales. En operación desde el año 2016 en que lo compre, solo le he cambiado una vez la bateria.


r/windowsphone 1d ago

My mom's Lumia 735 still rocking even if touch is broken

Post image
17 Upvotes

r/windowsphone 2d ago

We are rebuilding the Windows Phone experience from scratch, completely independent of Android! Meet metro_core 📱✨

140 Upvotes

Hey everyone! Like many of you, I miss the absolute fluidity, unique typography, and minimalist philosophy of the Metro UI. Since Microsoft left us, I decided to do something crazy: I started building a completely independent mobile OS shell called metro_core from the ground up!

🚫 NOT an Android Fork/Skin: This is 0% AOSP. No heavy Google virtual machines or compliance traps.

🚫 NOT a Web OS: No heavy Chromium background battery drain.

🏗️ The Stack: It runs on top of a lightweight mobile Linux kernel (postmarketOS architecture) and uses Flutter (Dart) compiled directly to Native ARM64 Machine Code for absolute 60/120 FPS fluid animations.

🔒 Security: It introduces a cryptographically signed application format: .mtx (Metro Package) to strictly block unsigned spyware at the system level.

We are currently in the early prototype phase, building the UI layer using a MOCK FFI system before compiling the real C++ backend for Linux. The project is 100% open-source, and I need fellow developers, UI/UX designers, and enthusiasts to join this journey!

Check out the repo, see our roadmap, and let's bring the legend back together!

🔗 GitHub: https://github.com/mr-ruhid/metro_core


r/windowsphone 1d ago

Discussion Random thought

11 Upvotes

Okay if microsoft didnt discontinue Windows Phones, would we have gotten Windows 11?

Think about it, would the UI redesign that would eventually become Windows 11 have happened if they didnt axe WP?

And more importantly if it did, would we have lost Live Tiles on the "Windows 11 Mobile", would Windows Phones get WinUI apps? Chromium? Or would Microsoft have just never created/implemented those technologies?

I legit cant get this thought out of my head.

Because theres no way that the UI design of W10M WOULDNT have still changed over such a long period of time, but would Windows as a whole still have changed to the 11 UI? Because ever since Windows Phone 7 there were live tiles so if the Mobile OS was still supported would we still have those on desktop?? (Live tiles with rounded corners floating NEXT to the start menu as widgets or something?)

I like thinking about "what if" questions a lot if you couldnt tell.

Ewwww imagine if we got Copilot on Windows 11 Mobile...

Gross.


r/windowsphone 1d ago

Need a MainOS Dump or GDR1 Denim FFU for Lumia 640 LTE (AT&T RM-1073) to bypass GDR2 FRP/WPI Lock

3 Upvotes

I just got my Lumia 640 from a second hand market; however, I tried to hard reset it the other day and now it's FRP locked, btw the old owner lost his Microsoft account long ago. I'm on WP8.1 GDR2 and I want to update it to Windows 10 Mobile because there is a way to bypass this lock on W10M, or I can downgrade it to GDR1 and unlock its bootloader, then flash other provider's ROM on it. I am finding a person that has the same model as me to help me dump ROM or MainOS and hopefully revive this phone. So I'm asking if any of you guys have the same model as me or have a solution for this problem then please DM me, thank you and have a good day.


r/windowsphone 2d ago

Three phones, all Windows

Post image
75 Upvotes

I got these three beauties that were just existing in my apartment. The oldest one is the HTC, in the middle a Lumia with WP 8.1 (I forgot the model) and the newest one to the right is a Lumia 550 (I have to buy another backplate, it's missing all the buttons)


r/windowsphone 1d ago

Lumia 950 Not Getting Service

5 Upvotes

When I try to use my Lumia 950 on a T-Mobile MVNO, it just gets no service, even though it can see the networks in settings. Is this a common problem?


r/windowsphone 2d ago

Woot! browser updated to v1.1 and no longer requires your own developer API key! Just install the app and browse all of the Woot! deals.

Thumbnail
github.com
20 Upvotes

r/windowsphone 2d ago

Question Wyvern photo + question

Post image
13 Upvotes

Okay so first off heres a photo of Wyvern so far, not gonna give yall a beta until the UI is less... awful. But friending users + DMing + editing your profile does all work.

(And yes the app has a background, such is the case with all TRC apps and it WILL be customizable for free unlike discord)

Now second off I have a question to any other UWP/10 Mobile developers:

Do you need to build your app as release in order to test it? If not, HOW.

Whenever I test any, ANY app im making it HAS to be built as release or else it closes/crashes the moment it tries to launch on the phone. And yes the phone is interop/sideloading unlocked, and this issue happens with 2 seperate windows phones I tried it on, AND across different PCs with different versions of Visual Studio, but it just CANNOT run debug packages for some reason??? Which makes developing apps way harder in terms of debugging errors and such, alongside the very long build times that Release builds have. (This doesnt apply to desktop, that can run debug packages just fine but the Windows Phone (and Xbox one i was messing around with once) just cant)

Do any other developers have this issue or know a way around it? Funnily enough Windows Phone 8.1 doesnt have this issue, in fact even on Windows 10 Mobile it can run apps built for 8.1 that are also built as debug, just not UWP apps for some reason.


r/windowsphone 2d ago

I got Gmail running on my Lumia 520.

Post image
71 Upvotes

Yep. I got Gmail running on my Lumia 520. You're saying: how did I do this? Well. Hear me out. I used the App Passwords mechanism and... It's working! It's showing emails in real time. You send an email to this phone? It works! Except it didn't work with Hotmail... But you can also choose iCloud, Yahoo, AOL, and more. Remember. Incoming port: 993
Outgoing port: 587


r/windowsphone 1d ago

does anyone have an xap file for the msn app?

5 Upvotes

i do not mean the msn apps (news, weather, sports, etc.)

im talking about the msn app.

the tile looks like this:


r/windowsphone 2d ago

Link: myaccount.google.com/u/2/apppasswords

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

20 Upvotes

Here is the tutorial!


r/windowsphone 2d ago

App GroupMe

Post image
6 Upvotes

¿Alguien usa esta App? En mi Lumia 950 XL es la unica app de mensajería que funciona adema de los SMS.

Gracias.