r/windowsphone • • Mar 26 '22

r/Windowsphone newbie guide - please start here!

186 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 An archived version of the old Wiki from back when WP was still a supported OS is still available in a link at the end of the page.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 • • 2h ago

W upgrade? Lumia 830 to Lumia 1520

Thumbnail
gallery
28 Upvotes

r/windowsphone • • 15h ago

i brought a lumia 920 for 70 reais (13 dollars), it has the original box and the cell phone are conserved. but, the screen is broken, and a new screen costs 60 reais (11 dollars). should i can brought the new screen?

Post image
54 Upvotes

sorry for my english, i dont speak english very well


r/windowsphone • • 6h ago

Question What happened to Vianium? Most of its GitHub repositories have disappeared — are there any backups?

3 Upvotes

Hello everyone!
I recently noticed something concerning about the Vianium project, which was developing modern applications and networking libraries for Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile.
The official GitHub organization previously advertised 23 public repositories, including Vianigram, Vianium Browser, Vianium TLS, Vianium HTTP, and many other projects.
However, when I checked GitHub, only 3 public repositories remained visible. Many of the original repository links now return 404 errors.
Official GitHub: https://github.com/vianium
Project website: https://vianium.com/
This is particularly concerning because Vianium was working on technologies that could help keep Windows Phone usable on the modern internet, including TLS 1.3, HTTP/2, and a native Telegram client.
I haven’t found an official explanation for what happened.
Does anyone know:
Why did most of the Vianium repositories disappear? Were they deleted, made private, or moved somewhere else?
Has the developer made any announcement about the future of the project?
Does anyone have backups, forks, or Git clones of the missing repositories?
Are there any archived source code snapshots on GitHub, Internet Archive, or other services?
Is Vianium still being actively developed, and could the repositories become public again?
I really hope the source code hasn’t been permanently lost.
With Windows Phone already facing so many challenges, preserving projects like Vianium is incredibly important.
Of course, any preservation effort should respect the developer’s wishes and the original software licenses.
If anyone knows what happened or where the source code can still be found, please share the information.
Thank you! Let’s keep Windows Phone development alive!


r/windowsphone • • 1d ago

News ztOS, A metro inspired Arch Linux based operating system

583 Upvotes

Hey all, I've been working on ztOS, a phone OS with a custom shell called ztMETRO. It recreates the look and motion of Windows Phone 8.1on Arch Linux ARM with mainline Linux 7.1.

The shell itself is written in C and opengl for acceleration, and there is a separate SDK to build application for this using python.

What works on the S9 (starlte):

  • Boots from internal storage, 60 fps shell with the Panfrost GPU
  • Touch, Wi-Fi, 4G data, SIM, speaker, light sensor, haptics
  • Start, tiles, app switcher, action centre and lock screen
  • Updater and an SDK for apps in Python/Qt

What doesn't yet:
Calls connect but you can't hear anything
No camera, Bluetooth, GPS or mic

It's very much alpha. The installer has been tested on bare-metal hardware, but there are some bugs so read the known quirks before flashing. Feedback, issues and testers welcome!

Repository

discord


r/windowsphone • • 7h ago

Thinking of starting a VKontakte (VK) blog using a Surface Go 2 + Galaxy S23 Ultra combo. Am I crazy or is this a peak budget mobile setup?

2 Upvotes

r/windowsphone • • 20h ago

Support LumiaFirmware.com has shut down — urgent effort to preserve its 5 TB firmware archive

10 Upvotes

Hello everyone!
On October 7, 2026, LumiaFirmware.com officially shut down after more than a decade of providing firmware files for Nokia and Microsoft Lumia devices.
This is a major loss for the Windows Phone preservation community.
The website hosted approximately 5 TB of firmware files, including original FFU images, rare regional and carrier-specific firmware versions, and emergency recovery files.
I’m particularly concerned that some firmware files may have existed only on LumiaFirmware and might not be available anywhere else.
If no other copies exist, these files could eventually be lost forever, potentially making it much harder or even impossible to restore certain Lumia devices.
Other archives, such as LumiaDB, are still available, but it’s unclear whether they contain everything that LumiaFirmware hosted.
I believe we should act as soon as possible to find out what has already been preserved.
I have several questions:
Does anyone have a complete or partial backup of LumiaFirmware.com?
Were any large portions of its firmware collection archived before the shutdown?
Are there existing Internet Archive collections containing these files?
Could we compare LumiaFirmware’s former catalog with LumiaDB and other archives to identify missing firmware?
Is there an existing community preservation project that could help collect and safely archive missing files?
Could the original website eventually be restored, if its owner wishes to reopen it?
Even a complete list of filenames, product codes, firmware versions, and checksums would be incredibly valuable.
An important request regarding the website’s owner:
Please respect the owner’s decision and privacy. They maintained this valuable resource for more than a decade, and we should be grateful for their contribution.
Please do not repeatedly contact the owner, send mass messages, harass them, or pressure them into reopening the website or releasing the archive. Such actions would be unfair and could make the situation worse.
If the original LumiaFirmware ever returns, I sincerely hope it will happen voluntarily and with the support of the community.
To be clear, there is currently no confirmation that the original files have been deleted. However, I believe it’s important to investigate existing backups now rather than risk losing potentially irreplaceable firmware in the future.
If you have backups or know about existing preservation efforts, please share any useful information.
Let’s keep this discussion focused on preserving files, locating backups, and finding constructive solutions.
Thank you to everyone helping preserve Windows Phone history!


r/windowsphone • • 1d ago

Gecko: a port of Firefox 155 browser for Windows 10 Mobile (beta, open source)

Thumbnail
gallery
62 Upvotes

Hi r/windowsphone! cmplog (Tеlеgram chаnnel) been porting Firefox's engine to Windows 10 Mobile, and it's now usable enough to share. It's called Gecko: a UWP browser built on Gecko from Firefox 155.0.1, running on our phones. Current version: 155.0.1.186.

Edge on W10M is stuck on EdgeHTML 15, and more and more sites simply don't work in it anymore. This is a modern engine, so most of them do again.

What works

  • Modern Gecko engine with a JavaScript JIT, plus WebAssembly
  • GPU rendering (WebRender over Direct3D 11) that redraws only what changed, so heavy sites like the YouTube home page load and scroll fast
  • Hardware H.264 decoding up to 1080p60, including streaming (Media Source Extensions: YouTube, VK Video). The browser picks H.264 on its own when a site also offers VP9 or AV1
  • Video goes straight to the display's hardware overlay when nothing is drawn on top of it, so fullscreen 1080p60 YouTube plays smoothly in portrait and landscape
  • Frame rate synced to the display, fullscreen video with rotation
  • Phone clipboard both ways, downloads (Downloads\Gecko or a folder of your choice, "Save as", file uploads)
  • Hardware back button that does the expected thing: closes the keyboard, menus, dialogs, fullscreen, goes back in the tab, and only then leaves the app
  • Microphone for WebRTC sites, with the system permission prompt
  • Sign-in popups (Google, VK, etc.) open as a new tab and return to the site afterwards
  • Tabs, pinch zoom, readable text on desktop-only pages (font inflation like Firefox for Android)
  • Discord works after login (it's shown a desktop browser)
  • Memory management built around the 2 GB address space of a 32-bit process
  • Firefox telemetry is off

Low-end phones: a hacky GPU path for Direct3D feature level 9_3

Firefox's GPU renderer needs Direct3D 11 at feature level 10 or higher. Low-end phones like the Lumia 650 (Adreno 304) only go up to feature level 9_3, where it simply doesn't start. Normally that means falling back to rendering everything on the CPU, which on a Snapdragon 212 is painfully slow.

So there's a custom in-between path for these phones. Pages are drawn by Firefox's software renderer (SWGL), but the heavy part, shading the pixels, is moved to the GPU: the work goes through pixel shaders the 9_3 hardware can still run, rendered into tiles, and composited by Direct3D 11. Shaders the driver might refuse are probed during idle time, so a refusal doesn't surface in the middle of a frame. Hardware H.264 decoding works at 9_3 too.

This solution helps a lot compared to pure CPU rendering, but a Lumia 650 is still much slower than an Elite x3. The fast paths (direct GPU rendering, the video overlay) need feature level 10+.

1 GB phones: a page file can help

On phones with 1 GB of RAM the system unloads apps that use too much memory, and a browser on YouTube easily takes 400–600 MB. If the browser keeps getting closed on you, enabling a page file gives the system somewhere to put memory and makes that happen less often.

Windows 10 Mobile has no setting for it, but on an interop-unlocked phone it can be turned on in the registry (e.g. with Interop Tools):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

PagingFiles = "u:\pagefile 1024 1024"

(minimum and maximum size in MB), then reboot. This is a system tweak at your own risk; it costs internal storage space and adds wear to the flash.

What doesn't (yet)

  • No DRM video (Netflix and the like): there are no DRM plugins for this platform
  • VP9/AV1 are software-only, so sites without H.264 won't play well above 360p
  • Camera in WebRTC hasn't been tested yet (only the microphone has), so no video calls for now
  • No printing, no Web Speech
  • No auto-update: new versions are installed as a new package over the old one (your data is kept)
  • Everything runs in a single process with no sandbox: UWP on the phone doesn't allow child processes
  • Extensions run on the same thread as pages, so uBlock Origin noticeably slows things down even when switched off from its own menu. Disable it in about:addons if you notice
  • Very heavy sites like Discord can bump into the address-space limit and stutter

Devices

  • HP Elite x3: tested, works well
  • Lumia 650: tested, runs on the feature level 9_3 path above, but noticeably slow
  • Lumia 950 / 950 XL, Alcatel Idol 4S, Acer Jade Primo and other Snapdragon 808/810/820 phones with 3 GB RAM: should work reasonably well

Requirements

  • Windows 10 Mobile 1703 (15063) or newer, ARM
  • Interop unlock (the package declares restricted capabilities: code generation for the JIT and broad file-system access for the profile)
  • The Gecko.cer certificate from the release installed on the phone
  • At least 1 GB RAM. On YouTube the browser uses 400–600 MB, so on 1 GB phones it will be slow (see the page file note above)

Download & source

This is still a beta, so expect rough edges. Bug reports are very welcome. If something crashes, the browser keeps logs (quiet by default, verbose mode can be switched on in its settings), and they help a lot.


r/windowsphone • • 19h ago

Updates to my apps are live in both MS Store and LiveStore!

Thumbnail
7 Upvotes

r/windowsphone • • 1d ago

Lumia 1520 finally arrived!

Thumbnail
gallery
159 Upvotes

After 3 weeks the Nokia lumia 1520 that I ordered from the us finally arrived! I really like its feel and form factor, I didnt really get to try out the battery yet, but it feels like a big upgrade from my 830! I’m going to try to unlock the bootloader and install apps on it. If I for some reason can’t figure it out, I’ll use w10m.


r/windowsphone • • 17h ago

Question Launcher for android 8?

1 Upvotes

Hi I love the windows phone and I want to put a metro launcher on a galaxy S7 active reminds me of the ATIV so I would like to put it on. Any launcher that works?


r/windowsphone • • 1d ago

Gecko: a port of Firefox 155 browser for Windows 10 Mobile (beta, open source)

Thumbnail
gallery
9 Upvotes

Hi r/windowsphone! cmplog (Telegram channel) has been porting Firefox's engine to Windows 10 Mobile, and it's now usable enough to share. It's called Gecko: a UWP browser built on Gecko from Firefox 155.0.1, running on our phones. Current version: 155.0.1.186.

Edge on W10M is stuck on EdgeHTML 15, and more and more sites simply don't work in it anymore. This is a modern engine, so most of them do again.

What works

  • Modern Gecko engine with a JavaScript JIT, plus WebAssembly
  • GPU rendering (WebRender over Direct3D 11) that redraws only what changed, so heavy sites like the YouTube home page load and scroll fast
  • Hardware H.264 decoding up to 1080p60, including streaming (Media Source Extensions: YouTube, VK Video). The browser picks H.264 on its own when a site also offers VP9 or AV1
  • Video goes straight to the display's hardware overlay when nothing is drawn on top of it, so fullscreen 1080p60 YouTube plays smoothly in portrait and landscape
  • Frame rate synced to the display, fullscreen video with rotation
  • Phone clipboard both ways, downloads (Downloads\Gecko or a folder of your choice, "Save as", file uploads)
  • Hardware back button that does the expected thing: closes the keyboard, menus, dialogs, fullscreen, goes back in the tab, and only then leaves the app
  • Microphone for WebRTC sites, with the system permission prompt
  • Sign-in popups (Google, VK, etc.) open as a new tab and return to the site afterwards
  • Tabs, pinch zoom, readable text on desktop-only pages (font inflation like Firefox for Android)
  • Discord works after login (it's shown a desktop browser)
  • Memory management built around the 2 GB address space of a 32-bit process
  • Firefox telemetry is off

Low-end phones: a hacky GPU path for Direct3D feature level 9_3

Firefox's GPU renderer needs Direct3D 11 at feature level 10 or higher. Low-end phones like the Lumia 650 (Adreno 304) only go up to feature level 9_3, where it simply doesn't start. Normally that means falling back to rendering everything on the CPU, which on a Snapdragon 212 is painfully slow.

So there's a custom in-between path for these phones. Pages are drawn by Firefox's software renderer (SWGL), but the heavy part, shading the pixels, is moved to the GPU: the work goes through pixel shaders the 9_3 hardware can still run, rendered into tiles, and composited by Direct3D 11. Shaders the driver might refuse are probed during idle time, so a refusal doesn't surface in the middle of a frame. Hardware H.264 decoding works at 9_3 too.

This solution helps a lot compared to pure CPU rendering, but a Lumia 650 is still much slower than an Elite x3. The fast paths (direct GPU rendering, the video overlay) need feature level 10+.

1 GB phones: a page file can help

On phones with 1 GB of RAM the system unloads apps that use too much memory, and a browser on YouTube easily takes 400–600 MB. If the browser keeps getting closed on you, enabling a page file gives the system somewhere to put memory and makes that happen less often.

Windows 10 Mobile has no setting for it, but on an interop-unlocked phone it can be turned on in the registry (e.g. with Interop Tools):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

PagingFiles = "u:\pagefile 1024 1024"

(minimum and maximum size in MB), then reboot. This is a system tweak at your own risk; it costs internal storage space and adds wear to the flash.

What doesn't (yet)

  • No DRM video (Netflix and the like): there are no DRM plugins for this platform
  • VP9/AV1 are software-only, so sites without H.264 won't play well above 360p
  • Camera in WebRTC hasn't been tested yet (only the microphone has), so no video calls for now
  • No printing, no Web Speech
  • No auto-update: new versions are installed as a new package over the old one (your data is kept)
  • Everything runs in a single process with no sandbox: UWP on the phone doesn't allow child processes
  • Extensions run on the same thread as pages, so uBlock Origin noticeably slows things down even when switched off from its own menu. Disable it in about:addons if you notice
  • Very heavy sites like Discord can bump into the address-space limit and stutter

Devices

  • HP Elite x3: tested, works well
  • Lumia 650: tested, runs on the feature level 9_3 path above, but noticeably slow
  • Lumia 950 / 950 XL, Alcatel Idol 4S, Acer Jade Primo and other Snapdragon 808/810/820 phones with 3 GB RAM: should work reasonably well

Requirements

  • Windows 10 Mobile 1703 (15063) or newer, ARM
  • Interop unlock (the package declares restricted capabilities: code generation for the JIT and broad file-system access for the profile)
  • The Gecko.cer certificate from the release installed on the phone
  • At least 1 GB RAM. On YouTube the browser uses 400–600 MB, so on 1 GB phones it will be slow (see the page file note above)

Download & source

This is still a beta, so expect rough edges. Bug reports are very welcome. If something crashes, the browser keeps logs (quiet by default, verbose mode can be switched on in its settings), and they help a lot.


r/windowsphone • • 1d ago

Lumia 1520 no ffu image with supported os

4 Upvotes

i recently bought a lumia 1520 (rm940) and i have been trying to unlock its bootloader. however, the 3rd option doesn't appear for the ffu image withh supported os. Can someone please help me or give the required files? Because i cant find the ffu image with supported os on the internet, and wut doesn't give me the downloads.


r/windowsphone • • 22h ago

why cant i install cmd injector on my 520?

1 Upvotes

it says that "package could not be verified" am i doing smth wrong or?


r/windowsphone • • 1d ago

Haru v2.0.0: Electric Boogaloo~

Thumbnail
gallery
47 Upvotes

Hey yawl! Back at it again to share some big updates to Haru.

We got:

  • Wide tiles \1])
  • Monochrome icons
  • Push notifications
  • Localization support
  • Favorites
  • and the ability to use your current location! \2] [3])

Of course, it still works on Windows Phone 7, 8.1, and 10 Mobile.

You can find more details, install and build instructions, reporting bugs, translation guide, and suggest new features over here. https://github.com/FriendsNone/Haru

Haru v2.0.0 is now up on Live Store https://store.live.net.co/app/334

Hope you guys enjoy the new update <3

\1] Wide tiles only works on Windows Phone 7.8 and up)
\2] GPS requires ReLiveWP to work on Windows Phone 7 devices)
\3] There might be an issue with GPS on Windows Phone 8.1. Servers might be dead?)


r/windowsphone • • 1d ago

Question Nokia care suite for Nokia 5230 RM-588

Thumbnail
2 Upvotes

r/windowsphone • • 1d ago

Fluff I think it's best duo of both epoch

Post image
17 Upvotes

530 and 950... Like... ughhh.... Just epic


r/windowsphone • • 2d ago

Rate The Haul

Thumbnail
gallery
174 Upvotes

My newest windows phone. I managed to somehow get it on eBay for $40 USD. I cant believe I finally own this. I've been looking for a 1020 for a long time and it doesn't even feel real that I can finally use one as my own. It looks great too! I haven't found any problems with it so far


r/windowsphone • • 1d ago

At a Glance for Android?

1 Upvotes

What I really miss from my windows Phone is at a glance. it was nice to see the regular time change to nighttime (RED)clock. Anyone knows if there is a Clock app that can do that on Android?


r/windowsphone • • 1d ago

A very longwinded but genuine query about restoration

1 Upvotes

Context:

Have a new-ish laptop, but with linux i've never understood or new how to update firmware, (never wanted to stay within default win10/11 'system-care" apps bundled-to-signin with many brands out there).

Point being, in linux, I recently found out that the package/tool for it:

fwupdmgr/fwupdtool

• Can be used to detect many hardware drivers/metadata of specific built-in devices to inspect the firmware associated with it.

• Can also download files seperately for manual install or manipulation/inspection.

• DFfu files were included i tha file management/inspection..

The primary interest being that this service imo is dead for windows end local and linked ffu installer and downloaded (links from windows 10 for myself) which leads to the main bulk of this issue.

Can it be confirmed, please the following:

  1. Is there a found 'official/provided' file-repo for lumia devices (offline/non windows app api dependent)
  2. has anyone therefore used the fwupdmgr commandline tool to download any windows phone dffus' does that include the adding of the 'remotes' (aka adding this windows official repo within the commandline tools config)
  3. if all else, the flashing of a windows phone since having used the tool with an externally downloaded file? (Point being instead of relying on windows program to flash the device specific firmware, this was use dinstead)

Purpose for query:

Have a deeply damaged phone in need of new display, to see state and reactions clearly of the firmware reinstating, (before completely dying on me) i saw that the firmware/romstore was corrupted and unbootable, yet linux pick up the qualcom device/driver id. So a new battery should also prevent such errors in the future too.

My device is a 520 so if anyone hase firmware files matching this model, that would save me time. I am familiar with android4lumia and similar xda threads but couldn't see this firmware compat file anywhere .(don't hate me for wanting to put a custom rom)

######
Update: found an independent re'o thanks to a user sharing the info, but the above queries apply mostly if one can possibly bypass the need for windows tools of flashing and backup/readback.


r/windowsphone • • 2d ago

so whats the fix for it?

Post image
16 Upvotes

r/windowsphone • • 2d ago

News someone just made a windows phone-like arch linux-based custom rom for the galaxy s9

Thumbnail
oginstagram.com
26 Upvotes

the animations are just perfect


r/windowsphone • • 3d ago

Flashed.

Thumbnail
gallery
142 Upvotes

Successfully flashed it to MY FFU 8.1 Cyan. What’s next?


r/windowsphone • • 2d ago

Support Need help with an lumia 630

4 Upvotes

I just found my 630 after 3 years and now I wanted to sideload/jailbreak It,but when It booted up it didn't even let me put my pin it was locked for 8k mins and stuck there with a black wallpaper,I tried using an sim to bypass the wrong date but the sim wasn't being recognized(telekom greece)ive let it stay on my drawer,waiting for the countdown to finish,is there any way to bypass this lock? Without formatting my data tho


r/windowsphone • • 3d ago

WhatsApp Web (Lumia 930)

99 Upvotes

WhatsappWeb working on Lumia 930, but laggy :)