Ativ S on Windows 10 Preview

[Dragone]

It will not work for us as it requires interop unlock.

It worked for me. I did not interop unlock mine.

 

[nauman73]

Decided I will put the Windows 10 Preview on my Ativ S T899M. It's getting on in age and I've come to terms with the fact it will never get updated firmware or official 8.1. I have my work phone to use if something goes awry. Don't know how (or even if) it will work since it runs 8.1 Dev Preview, but kind of excited all the same. It has been a wonderful phone and will help me decide if I want to spend the money on a new flagship once they actually start showing up. Wish me luck and I'll keep you all posted. Sounds like it will be released for download any day now.

Ativ S has got official Windows Phone 8.1 update but not in all regions. I have Ativ S I8750 and I recently updated it to official Windows Phone 8.1 update from Samsung. But I had to change my phone CSC to ATO. You can look at latest posts at http://forums.windowscentral.com/samsung-ativ-s/295444-84.htm for more details.

 

[Scott McIntosh2]

I can confirm this. Ran the update on a spare phone using the hack on XDA forums and the phone is now stuck in a boot loop.

If anyone knows how to reset the phone to factory with logging in to the OS i'd appreciate it.

I answer your issue under troubleshooting but I gave more resources for the whole mod process.

Hey guys I've not seen any truely comprehensive walkthroughs for how to put the Windows insider preview on any phone regardless of support as well as how to tweak your windows 10 mobile OS and fix bricked devices when something fails. Be warned I cant baby step you through everything because it would be a books worth, I'll try to phrase everything so you can google it but if you have some very basic understanding of VB you should be alright, the process mostly involves tricking the windows phone SDK into installing a firmware package on the phone you want. So PREREQUISITE KNOWLEDGE 1) LEARN YOUR PHONES PROCESSOR ARCHITECTURE; and find all Lumia models that support the same processor, you will find multiple matches mostly snap dragon, next match your screen display as close as possible; virtually none of these are identical so focus of ppi(pixels per inch), finally match the cellular bands as best you can basically just making sure the bands your phones hardware support are present, I've checked like 20ish phones there's always a Lumia whose firmware will work. PREREQUISITE FIRMWARE 2) So you figure out what firmware you need Great! One huge problem unless you can borrow the phone you need, and wipe out it's data and go through restore and hope you didn't mess up your friends phone(more on that later) you need an easier way to get your firmware. Well there's a couple ways the "easiest" lol (and most stable way) is to download the windows phone SDK since you'll need it later anyway, the catch you need to install it in a virtual desktop environment so you can emulate a windows phone with the sdk (testing environment feature) then share the resource like you would a drive with your physical host running your virtual environment (tip: Use VSphere cuz I did and it's free and it worked) this basically let's you view the virtual phone as a hard drive on your host and you have access to is file and such. Now fortunately the file structure is pretty small while going through them you will find your unmistakable firmware installation file, it's present in every windows 10 os presumable as some kind of recovery feature to reinstall it's own os. SO IF YOUR NOT GREAT WITH VB and virtual environments well you have to find the phone with the firmware you need, step one back up the phone cuz its going to get reformatted so make sure you can restore your data. Next install windows phone recovery tool plug the phone in follow the instructions and restore the phone, now that you've done that the windows phone recovery tool has the firmware you need hiding somewhere on your PC, sucky party depending on your is it could be in a few places mostly it's in your %appdata% folder but sometimes uts in the install directory and even once I found it in one if the temp folders, if your lucky you will catch the string that tell you the name of the firmware package while restoring your dummy phone. Ok so you got your firmware. FINAL STEP INSTALL YOUR FIRMWARE. So go ahead install the windows phone SDK, then plug your phone in. Again you'll be given access to folders usually reserved for developers, you need to add some tools from the menu that will allow you to view unprotected operating system files (use the sdk support forms to see how it's easy) you will find a strange folder named something like 1143.usdtfff the letters and numbers are random but inside that folder you need to add the new firmware file, ignore the old firmware files don't delete them incase you want to rollback; the phone always chooses the newest firmware, and Lumia is newer then all 3rd party device builds so it will upgrade to your new firmware. When the file is in place restart your phone and check for updates you'll get weird updates that will mostly fail and that's ok run update a few times if nothing shows up it's fine the ativ doesn't seem to look for additional updates. BUT Wait my new os isn't here yet???? Easy just do a factory reset and check your firmware and os build, oh my your phone thinks it's a Nokia Lumia well now go ahead and download the windows insider preview and update to windows 10 or when the full build comes out do the same. OK addressing the actual post TROUBLESHOOTING uh oh brick your phone? Or does it just reboot in a circle over and over trying to install updates? STEP ONE. try windows phone recovery tool if you haven't works maybe 80% of the time if not STEP TWO. Unplug your phone. Keep turning it on let it cycle and turn itself off(reboot cycle or updates stuck) just keep at it until it dies, don't wait for standby to kill it drain it manually, and drain it till there's nothing left even when it doesn't appear to be turning on keep at it for an extra 15 you want the battery 110% depleted like super depleted. Next boot up windows phone recovery tool plug the phone in and wait for it to have enough power to get detected by windows phone recovery tool, keep an eye out if the Usb connection to your PC charges the phone enough it will start to boot cycle again, the key is to let the windows recovery tool to take over the boot sequence before the update process takes over again, from there recover your phone as normal and start again. Oh and 9 out if 10 times the upgrade failed because your forgot to remove your sd card. I hope that helps you understand the whole hack so you can troubleshoot further if you need to but out of the 8 phones I've moded to windows 10 including a Galaxy lol these steps always recovered the phone. These hacks are brought to you By aphilio and liquis!