hack

We covered using your phone as a USB storage device awhile ago. It's one of those features that lots of folks want but the demand waxes and wanes, usually based on remembering that our phones can't do it natively. For the record, Microsoft always frowned upon this practice as you could theoretically screw something up. We're not even sure if the original hack works anymore (we're betting 'no') but that hasn't stopped developer Den Delimarsky from coming up with his own solution.

His method is detailed in full in this post and we'll leave the nitty-gritty to the developers out there. As he says, you can do this yourself though for us non-techies he's looking to release this publicly when it's all good and ready (at least we really hope he does).

"You probably always wanted to use your Windows Phone device as a USB storage device but never could. Well, this is solvable. There were a couple of hacks floating around, but I was curious to see if I can do it by myself. Well, I found a way to do it without third-party OS hacks and only with the help of a simple application built around the Microsoft.Smartdevice.Connectivity assembly.

I am not releasing the application itself at this point because there is more work to be done, but you can take a peek at what it looks like."

You can even upload files to an app's isolated storage, which is a bit advanced for most of us. Just form glancing at the tool this certainly seems like a much nicer method than before and looks quite promising. While not a plug-n-play solution, probably something we won't see anytime soon, it could be a decent option for those who need such a method for file transport.

Source: DZone

Yesterday we saw the developer release of "Mango" for Windows Phone 7. The method requires a $99 AppHub subscription and for you to make a backup of your phone before the flash. It also voids your warranty.

Today, of course, people have already figured out ways around having a developer unlocked phone to flash Mango to it. We want to stress a couple of things first though:

• This voids your warranty
• You can't upgrade to the final Mango from this build, so you MUST back up
• If you loose your backup, your phone is permanently in preview-Mango mode--no going back, no going forward
• If this flash doesn't work and you brick your phone, it's your fault. Remember, even the offiical method has some issues (see here).

The first method comes by way of WPSauce. In essence, it requires three steps:

1. Reverting back to 7004 or 7008 (aka pre-NoDo) by using your backup in Zune
2. Using ChevronWP7 to unlock your phone
3. Downloading and installing the official Mango update tools

We won't link to the files here, but safe to say you can do a little sleuthing around to find them yourself. This method at least will create a backup of your device (which you should also backup) and allow you to go forward once the real Mango update comes out this fall. Of all the ways, this is the safest (though still risky).

The second method comes via Windows Phone Hacker. It does not require you to revert back nor have a developer unlocked device. It basically will "...provision your device to receive beta updates. It requires the Windows Phone Support Tools to be installed, and your device needs to be updated to NoDo or beyond". Note: it does not create a backup, but you can do it yourself.

Once again, we caution you to hold off on doing this, at least for a few days. Wait till others have tried it, wait till Microsoft responds, wait till we know more about what is happening here. The second method is certainly the most risky and no one wants to hear your story about how your phone broke because you did this, so patience is a virtue here.

Source: WPSauce, Windows Phone Hacker

If you have experienced your upload speed being restricted on AT&T, which can occur after you've (finally) updated with official NoDo, there are some simple steps you can take to increase speed:

• From the number-dial screen:
• Enter ##634#
• Diagnostics screen should open.
• Enter *#32489#
• Test mode screen should open.
• Press back at the bottom (bottom right, not the phone's back button)
• Press 5 for RRC (HSPA) control
• Press 1 to view what yours is set at (Kyle's was Release 5 HSDPA only)
• Press 2 to change it.
• Press 3 to change to Release 6 HSDPA/HSUPA
• Press [end] to confirm.

This will install a Diagnostics app on your device (that will be displayed on the installed app list), we are not currently aware if uninstalling the app will cause issues with the diagnostics tool itself. And if you need to know your speeds, there's an app for that: Bandwidth 2.x in the Marketplace. Hit us up in comments and let us know if this worked for you, we're still experimenting ourselves.

Thanks Kyle for the steps!

Information is a bit murky, but it looks like there could be a problem with the recently released ChevronWP7.Updater that was posted a few days ago by Chris Walsh. The updater as of now has been pulled offline with no explanation given. Based on Microsoft's own tools for fixing NoDo installation errors, Walsh was able to modify it so that it forced a NoDo update for any device queued for the ROM upgrade without any "hacking" to the phone itself.

Adding fire to the mix is a report, unconfirmed, from the::unwired who said this:

According to Microsoft, the use of ChevronWP7.Updater could possibly put the updated Windows Phone 7 device into a state where it cannot receive future regular updates to the OS anymore and the only fix will be re-flashing the device with an original stock ROM. At the end of the day if could mean that such Windows Phone 7 devices have to be send to the manufacturers or carriers service centers because unlike for Windows Mobile, stock ROMs are officially not available as a public download for end-users.

However, before we all start panicking, the man himself, Chris Walsh, has chimed in on Twitter saying "Don't believe everything you read" in response from numerous people mentioning the potential issues.

Pure speculation here, but we imagine Microsoft asked Walsh to pull the update till they could test all the ramifications of the hack. In the process, some premature dire warnings made it out to the 'net without 100% confidence behind them e.g. better to be cautious than not. In short, if you haven't done this update yet, your best bet is to wait a few days for the dust to settle as we're sure Walsh and Microsoft will have something to announce on the matter when something definitive can be said.

Source: the:unwired, My Coding Adventures, Twitter 1, Twitter 2

For those of you who received the February pre-NoDo update but are still waiting for the big important March one to hit, there looks to be an easy way to make it happen now, without using the "VPN" trick discovered earlier.

In essence, the earlier VPN trick forced your computer to connect up to Hungary where, for some reason, the NoDo update was residing for certain phones. Now that NoDo is being pushed out large-scale, well, it's on more servers including more local ones. Still, how to get it to your device is proving to be a little tricky.

On devices listed on Microsoft's website as "delivering update" this should work, including T-Mobile HD7's:

1. Start Zune
2. Turn off Data connection and Wifi on the Phone
3. Connect the Phone with the PC (USB)
4. Start the update search in Zune
5. About 3 seconds later, disconnect your PC from the internet (Turn WLAN off).
6. Zune finds NoDo-Update. Press OK.
7. Connect to the internet again and install the update.

Although some people are reporting that they had to try this multiple times, specifically the "timing" aspect in step 5, lots of folks are successfully getting the NoDo update. Share your experience in comments below and what you did to finally get it to push through. By the way, you do need the February update to get this to work.

Update: For laughs, we tried it on our "de-branded" AT&T LG Quantum (w/Feb update). Result? NoDo success!

Source: XDA (Dwight2001); Thanks to everyone who sent this in

We now know that Microsoft is doing a controlled, phased roll-out of 'NoDo', starting with unbranded phones evidently in Europe. That means a potentially prolonged delay for many users (and between us, we've just heard that AT&T users have a looong wait).

The good news is there is a 'hack' that can be done for HTC phones that will basically "unbrand" them allowing them to get 'NoDo', well, right now. Coming from some of team ChevronWP7 (Chris Walsh and Raphael Rivera) is a tricky edit that will enable this to be done:

Your device needs to be dev-unlocked for this to work. Sorry folks.

1. Download this zip file and deploy the 3 xap files onto your device.
2. Run the ChevronWP7.Ringtones.xap and wait till it displays “Ringtones added… and CustClear.provxml underneath”
3. Run the TouchXplorer app, navigate to My DocumentsMy Ringtones click on CustClear.provxml and select Copy from the Application Bar.
4. Navigate back inside TouchXplorer to the Windows folder.
5. Select paste from the Application Bar, this should scroll right to the bottom and put a copy of CustClear.provxml in the Windows folder.
6. Now run the Connection Setup application and click on the Ok button (it’s the one with the tick).

And now you’re done and free to re-connect to Zune and check for updates.

Now there is one caveat here we can think of: T-Mobile HD7 users may want to hold off. That's because that device has the special T-Mo bands and radio while the unlocked HD7 does not (or at the very least, could complicate things), so you may want to consider that if you're in that situation. Still, for the AT&T Surround users, sounds like you could do this, assuming you've jailbroken your phone for one last hoorah.

Update: Chris Walsh lets us know T-Mo HD7 users are good to go (hey, that rhymed); the update only modifies the OS, not the radio.

Update 2: Bad news is we're hearing non-Euro users are only getting the pre-NoDo update with this technique :-/

Source: My Coding Adventures (blog); via @ChrisWalshie

We previously covered the famed hacker GeoHot possibly moving over to Windows Phone 7, and it seems that this is now possibly happening with Pwn2Own 2011 hacking contest listing GeoHot as a registrant on the Dell Venue, which is being held next week.

Update: We're now told Geohot had to back out due to the ongoing Sony lawsuit with him needing to devote time to that instead. Thanks, @aaronportnoy.

For those of us who like to sideload Homebrew apps on our Windows Phone, the process can be a little tedious e.g. your phone re-locks often, having to run the Zune software, etc.

The latter piece though can be avoided, that is you don't have to run the Zune Desktop just to sideload a XAP file or even unlock your device (using ChevronWP7). XDA member xbodmod has described a way to just run the "connect" part without Zune, making the process much more streamlined. The process is fairly simple:

• Disable Zune auto-start (Zune --> Settings --> Software--> General --> "Start the Zune software..."
• Create a shortcut to desktop from C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Tools\WPConnect\WPConnect.exe
• Plug in phone
  

That's it. Just running WPConnect.exe and allowing it load for a second does the job and now you can run Tom's XAP installer, ChevronWP7, etc. We like simplicity around here.

Update: @adamUCF lets us know that Microsoft themselves have described this exact method, so credit to them first.

Source: XDA, MSDN

A few weeks ago, we reported on a tweak to boost the sound on the Samsung Focus (as if it wasn't loud enough). Turns out, we were a little premature as the settings did not stick.

Flash forward 10 days later and looks like the folks at XDA figured it out, so we figured we'd do an update. We also have a new one that boosts the volume when using a headphones (the Focus turns the overall volume down for obvious reasons).

The process is similar: using the Samsung Diagnosis app, enter in some values. Done. For this, we can definitely confirm the headphones are much louder...probably too loud, but you can decide. And both stick after a reboot. Post results in comments or our Focus sub-forum!

Full instructions after the break...