Redmond removes critical code from the OS

Jun 21, 2019 04:39 GMT  ·  By

While Microsoft is planning to kill off Windows 10 Mobile once and for all in December, the dream of a Windows phone has so far lived on thanks to skilled developers out there who have managed to achieve the impossible by porting Windows 10 ARM to Lumia phones.

The project advanced slowly, especially because Microsoft itself has never been too keen on supporting these efforts, but it did reach a point where nearly everything was working, including even making and receiving phone calls.

And just when it seemed that we could finally get a Windows phone running full Windows, here’s Microsoft making the whole thing well… close to impossible.

Recent preview builds of Windows 10 shipped to Fast ring insiders no longer include the cellular networking stack, which means that despite all the aforementioned efforts, making and receiving a phone call on a device powered by Windows 10 ARM is no longer possible.

No sign of Andromeda

Gustave Monce, who is one of the developers pushing the dream of a Windows phone forward with hard work on this project, explains the following on Twitter:

“Windows Phone Cellular networking stack has been removed from Windows Desktop by build 18912. Qualcomm Windows Phone cellular stack also relied on Windows Phone specific OIDs to work properly, these also seem gone on first glance. So even if we load the RIL ourselves without the driver and make adjustments things won't work.”

“Parts if not all of the Windows Phone cellular stack is present on Windows Desktop since Redstone 1 (14393). The entire driver set for Lumia on Windows relied on this being present to work. To put it shortly, it means this: On builds newer or equal to 18912, Cellular will not work anymore on Lumias running Windows Desktop with the current codebase, Calls, Texts, data will not work and probably won't ever do unless some massive effort is put into rewriting the stack.”

While Microsoft remains tight-lipped on this decision to remove the cellular networking stack from the OS, this isn’t necessarily surprising. Ditching unused code obviously makes the OS lighter and helps prevent various bugs that could impact devices running it. However, this could be pretty much the end of the Windows phone dream, especially as the highly-anticipated Andromeda is nowhere to be seen.