14 DAY TRIAL // They say Windows RT has no future in Microsoft's vision, so the tablet-oriented operating system is pretty much dead after the latest update released in September this year.
And yet, installing Windows RT on other devices is still a challenging thing to do, especially when the devices in question are actually Windows Phone handsets.
XDA member Wack0Distractor (via WindowsCentral) has managed to do that on a Lumia 520, showing screenshots of what seems to be the Windows RT installation process running on this Windows Phone model.
In the details offered in his post, Wack0Disractor explains that this is just a proof of concept, and while he did manage to get the Windows Setup running on the device, he won't go any further with the hack to get the full operating system on the phone.
He notes that the touchscreen wasn't working in this project, so additional work is needed to load the drivers and make Windows RT usable on the Lumia 520. Some other hackers could continue the project, he says, and it's probably just a matter of time until this happens.
The short Windows RT history
Windows RT was more or less an experiment for Microsoft, as the operating system debuted in 2012 on the Surface RT, Redmond's first tablet in history. The same OS version was used on the Surface 2 as well, despite criticism coming from pretty much everyone who blasted Microsoft for building an operating system that looks like Windows 8 but doesn't run full apps.
Microsoft has never announced the death of Windows RT, but the company slowly but surely abandoned it. This year, when Windows 10 got the go-ahead, Windows RT only received a small update that included the original Start menu shipped by Microsoft in October 2014 in Windows 10 preview builds, as well as some other minor improvements.
But aside from this update, everyone believes Windows RT is a discontinued project, so getting it running on Windows Phone device could actually open the door to new opportunities in the Windows community.