r/windowsphone Mar 26 '22

r/Windowsphone newbie guide - please start here!

174 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 An archived version of the old Wiki from back when WP was still a supported OS is still available in a link at the end of the page.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 12h ago

News New version of the Instagram client for Windows Phone.

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153 Upvotes

Get the full Instagram experience using insta10 for Windows Phone. You can download this app from the Metro Store using the link below:

https://www.metrostore.my.id/2026/08/instagram-beta.html?m=1

Insta10 Beta 0.1.9.6

🌍 LOGIN

• If you can't log in, simply enable two-factor authentication on your account using the Google or Microsoft app, and you'll be able to log in.

✨ New Features

• Activity tab working — likes, comments, and history

• Repost (partial): you can now repost videos

• Improved icons throughout the app

• Abbreviated Reels like counts: 30,000 → "30k"

• Rounded "Follow" button on Reels, matching Android

• Badge on suggested profiles in the Stories bar

• New name and logo: Insta10 Beta

• Login screen notice regarding enabling two-step verification

🐞 Fixes

• Login bug fixed

• Profile picture would turn black and only recover upon reopening the app — now it is cached and retries loading

• Video would pause when tapping "Repost"

• Removed "2 of 9 • swipe to load more"

• Cleaner login screen: "Restore saved session" and "Diagnostics" removed

• Profile grid no longer reloads unnecessarily every time the app opens

• More optimized app and many more features


r/windowsphone 6h ago

Question I really want to buy a windows phone because of this subreddit.

12 Upvotes

Hello, every time i open reddit i see some very cool project in here so i really wanna buy a wp now and try them all, but the thing is i really have no idea which one to buy, i have a lumia 800 but it has my moms old data and i DONT want to lose that. Should i get a nokia/microsoft or do i try to find like a htc or something. I like the metro design and a lot of the physical designs of the windows phones (especially if they are smaller in size and have smaller bezels) and i also like the cameras (or just the ones on the 800) they have close to no processing which i love and a veery nice flash. So yeah i just wanted to ask if someone could reccomend me some models i could maybe try to daily drive so i would just need whatsapp and maybe youtube and mobile data working. (wouldnt mind a good battery) Thanks!


r/windowsphone 11h ago

Discussion Grizzly Music v1.1.0.0 is out now! [Windows Phone 10 (RS3/1709)]

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23 Upvotes

Thank you for the overwhelming support, feedback and criticism for the app through the post comments and my DMs. I have taken all of the feedback and worked on some of them for the next release. Zune Theme and Local Music File Import functionality will come out in v1.2.0.0 after a few weeks, stay tuned :)

Download Here: GrizzlyMusic v1.1.0.0 APPX File (Alt: MetroStore Link)

What's New in Version v1.1.0.0:
• Background & Lock-Screen Playback Overhaul:
- Fixed audio stutter/jitter across both unlocked background and locked states by decoupling UI dispatcher notifications and optimizing background audio thread priority.
- Implemented an intelligent background stream pre-resolution pipeline that caches upcoming track audio streams ahead of time, ensuring continuous, uninterrupted queue playback even when the phone screen is locked.

• Dynamic Live Tile Support:
- Small Tile: Clean, distraction-free static white logo on your phone's system accent color.
- Medium Tile: Displays the active track title, artist name, and now playing status.
- Wide / Rectangle Tile: Features smooth Windows 10 Start screen flip animations alternating between:

  1. Full-Bleed Album Art View: High-res artwork with overlaid bold song and artist typography.
  2. Clean Transparent Now Playing View: Fluent typography showing the active track, artist, and playback status over your transparent Start background.

• Icon & Branding Refresh:
- Replaced the icon with a solid, pure-white flat vector silhouette with transparent negative-space cutouts, perfectly aligning with native Windows 10 Mobile Metro design principles.
- Restored classic original splash screen.

[Note: Live Store Dev Portal status for this is still marked as pending.]


r/windowsphone 4h ago

Support Lumia 1520 doesn’t turn on

4 Upvotes

Hi everyone. I have a Lumia 1520 that I didn’t charge during these years (I guess two or maybe more). Today I plugged it to the charging wall and it initially showed me the windows button flashing, then the red battery icon. After a few minutes I turned it on and it showed the Home Screen and instantly turned off. Later I tried again, it kept showing windows button flashing and then the red battery icon but nothing else. After a while I tried again, and it didn’t start, but I noticed the windows butting flashing more rapidly than usual. After that, nothing. If I connect the phone to the charger or the wireless charger it doesn’t give any sign of life. I put it for 3 hours on the wireless charger pad, it got warm like if it was charging but nothing, he refuses to turn on even the windows button. I tried to hold the power button and volume down but nothing. Does anyone know what can I do? I’m charging it using a Nikon Coolpix P600 brick (5V - 1A) and the micro usb cable of the Bose Soundlink Color II, but I’ve also used the original Lumia cable with an iPad Air 2 10 W brick. Please, can anyone know what could I possibly do? The computer doesn’t detect the phone, at least before I put it on lamp, now I haven’t tried again. Thanks in advance!


r/windowsphone 8h ago

Thanks everyone for your positive repose to my little video clip showing the Windows Phone working with a 1980's Bernoulli drive. Tomorrow I will have some new content here about the Windows Phone, this time involving Audio CDs.

9 Upvotes

r/windowsphone 2h ago

Question Anyone have a service provider recommended for the US?

2 Upvotes

I have a Lumia 950 XL and I tried using Mint Mobile because when I did the bring your own device IMEI check it said it would be compatible. Only to find out, when I bought a plan and received a SIM card in the mail, it didn't work. It detects that there is a T-Mobile network (because Mint is owned by T-Mobile) but it still shows no service. My phone is VoLTE active, anyone have any good suggestions? 🙏


r/windowsphone 20h ago

Discussion What windows phone should I buy?

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49 Upvotes

r/windowsphone 6h ago

Looking for a Windows phone that is a good Hi-Res flac music player

3 Upvotes

Hey guys. I loved the Zune, so damn much. I was all in until they discontinued it and was very heartbroken. All I had back then was MP3s though. Now, my library consists solely of 24bit/48kHz (or higher} flac files and sadly the Zune can't handle Hi-Res flac.

A few years ago, I was considering buying a Zune and upgrading the heck out of it but that's when I present that the Zune can't handle Hi-Res flac without converting to high quality wma files, so I decided not to buy a Zune and bought a nice external USB DAC for my Galaxy and it works wonderfully. However, I remember when I discovered the Zune can't play Hi-Res flac files, I read that one of the Lumia Windows 8 or 10 phones that ran the Zune music player app and had a great internal DAC that could push some powerful cans but I cannot fit the life of me, seem to get my Google search terms right to figure out which Lumia device that was. So I'm here asking y'all which device I'm looking for.

Thanks in advance


r/windowsphone 47m ago

Question hey guys

Upvotes

im contemplating of getting a lumia 930 cuz of windows phone 8.1 but im also thinking of getting a 950 xl i dont really know which one to get please help me i really want wp 10 cuz its easier to sideload but i do want wp 8.1 beacuse it looks so cool im really torn on this


r/windowsphone 8h ago

Question Nokia fanmade apps and live store

2 Upvotes

Hi guys I have two Windows phone 640 XL and 365 512mb RAM version both have WP os 10 and I have two questions. Can someone what fanmade apps I can install in both? I can’t install live store with the phone and I have developers options activated. How I can install it


r/windowsphone 12h ago

Support Lumia 635 (RM-975) - Broken Power Button. What now?

2 Upvotes

Hi! I’ve owned a Lumia 635 for about a year, and the power button has always been iffy, I resorted to having a tiny bit of paper between the back cover and the button itself so i could comfortably press it. However, the button itself has recently fully come lose, and im not able to turn on the phone without plugging it in. Are there any tweaks that allow me to double tap the screen to wake it, and apps that allow for me to turn off the screen, as a replacement to the power button? Iirc WP8.1 doesn’t have anything like apple’s AssistiveTouch to take care of this. Thanks!


r/windowsphone 1d ago

Discussion Announcing Grizzly Music: Native Streaming Client for Windows 10 Mobile

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104 Upvotes

Developed by Grizzly Dev (LinkedIn: Swapnil Rao)

You can download it from MetroStore.

1. Introduction

I am pleased to announce the official release of Grizzly Music, a native music streaming and offline playback client built specifically for Windows 10 Mobile. Unlike web wrappers, Android port conversions, or bridged PWAs, Grizzly Music is an authentic, standalone Universal Windows Platform (UWP) application engineered entirely from the ground up in C# and XAML. It was designed from scratch to deliver a modern, smooth, and lightweight streaming experience. It currently stands as the only dedicated, native streaming client actively maintained for the platform.

2. Key Features

Discover and Explore
- Dynamically curated home shelves that automatically load trending global hits, new single and album drops, workout mixes, etc.
- Rich metadata presentation with high-resolution artwork optimized for mobile memory constraints.

Search Engine with Granular Filters
- Fast, responsive global catalog search.
- Dedicated tab filters to narrow results across All, Songs, Albums, and Playlists.
- Instant playback launch directly from search results.

Advanced Music Player Interface
- Clean, edge-to-edge playback screen with adaptive background styling.
- Full System Media Transport Controls (SMTC) integration for background playback, volume key tracking, lock-screen controls, and Bluetooth metadata forwarding.
- Integrated lyrics engine providing synchronized and static lyrics view with a quick slide-up gesture.
- Live dynamic queue management with shuffle, repeat, and reordering support.

Grizzly Radio and Infinite Mix
- One-tap infinite radio mix generation based on any track or artist.
- Seamless automatic queue population to keep music playing continuously without manual curation.

Local Library, Playlists, and Offline Downloads
- Offline Device Storage: Download complete audio streams in high-bitrate audio directly to device storage for fully offline playback without an active data connection.
- Custom Playlists: Create, rename, edit, and organize local playlists with full track management.
- Liked Songs: Quick-save favorite tracks with instant offline caching.
- Listening History: Detailed chronological tracking of recently played music.

Settings, Personalization, and Cloud Backup
- Appearance & Accent Colors: Native theme customization with full support for Windows Phone system accent colors and true-black AMOLED backgrounds.
- Audio Quality Profiles: Configurable streaming bitrates to optimize for mobile bandwidth conservation or maximum fidelity.
- Encrypted Cloud Account Sync: Server-backed user account system to backup, restore, and sync your playlists, liked songs, and playback history across reinstalls and device swaps.

3. Installation Instructions

Grizzly Music is distributed as a clean, self-signed sideload package with a one-time certificate setup.
- Extract the release .zip archive on your phone or PC.
- Open GrizzlyMusic.cer on your Lumia device and tap Install Certificate
- Tap GrizzlyMusic_1.0.0.0_ARM.appxbundle
- Tap Install.


r/windowsphone 1d ago

Just got a new Lumia 950 XL Dual Sim...

7 Upvotes

I just bought a new lumia from my friend, he already has many lumias and was nice enough to give one to me for free. I've seen all over this sub-reddit of the new "live store" Ive seen people use telegram and insta and I also want to use them too! But i also saw a post about a new app on "Metro store". I am a little confused on how to install these on my phone and what I need to do for it, can anyone give me a breif tutorial on how to do any of this?


r/windowsphone 1d ago

Can anyone tell me why Bind Mi Band wont install?

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7 Upvotes

I've downloaded it from live store but when i try to install it this error shows up:


r/windowsphone 1d ago

Discussion Nokia Refocus deserved to survive. I tried bringing that idea back on iPhone.

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22 Upvotes

I’ve been experimenting with a new MultiFocus mode for my app, LSC Long Shot Camera, inspired by Nokia Refocus and the kind of computational photography ideas we used to see during the Lumia era.

It captures 10 different focus planes in one shot, and afterwards you can tap different parts of the image to change the focus point.

You can export the currently selected focus as a JPG, export all 10 focus frames as separate JPGs, or keep the entire stack in LSC’s private .nar format. Those .nar stacks can be reopened later inside the app, refocused again, and exported whenever you want.

I also added an All Focus mode that tries to combine the sharpest areas from different focus planes into one image. That part is still not perfect yet — focus breathing and alignment between different focus distances make it a much harder problem than simple frame stacking — but I’m actively working on improving it.

MultiFocus is now available in LSC v2.1 on the App Store.

If you already have LSC, you can update to v2.1 now and try MultiFocus. If you do, I’d really love to hear what you think.

Working on this really reminded me how much experimentation was happening around Lumia cameras. Nokia and Windows Phone were exploring ideas like refocusing and computational photography long before they became normal smartphone features.

If you try MultiFocus, I’d genuinely love to see the refocus images you create — please share them here.

Support from users is what lets me keep improving these apps and experimenting with features like this, so thank you to everyone following the project.


r/windowsphone 1d ago

Question Trying to remember a WP game

2 Upvotes

Hopefully someone can help! All I really remember is that it was a 2d game that I think took place in a temple in one level. You wore a little hat like Indiana Jones. Very pixel based game.


r/windowsphone 1d ago

WPInternals freezing after trying to put my phone in flash mode

4 Upvotes

the phone stay in normal mode. does anyone know a fix for that ?


r/windowsphone 2d ago

Hola gente un un saludo, tengo en misa la un Nokia lumia 725, quisiera instalar solo app y juegos mediante PC me pueden ayudar con algún tuto gracias 🫂

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22 Upvotes

Gracias <3


r/windowsphone 2d ago

Planet Life

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5 Upvotes

Im tryna remake Planet Life (my favorite game ever) in C#

(Its originally an HTML game but its too new so UWP/Edge wont run it properly)


r/windowsphone 2d ago

News reCortana available in beta on Live Store!

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185 Upvotes

So, I've been talking about this for far too long now, and I thought I'd give you guys a working client!

reCortana is powered by AI to give you helpful and personalized results. Cortana can search the web, look up news, and do anything you ask.

The old apicortana.sync.nexus API has been totally overhauled to work as an API to reCortana for Windows Phone. This means that you can no longer access Cortana using your web browser.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this passion project of mine! More screenshots are available on Live Store. Compatible with WP8.1. I haven't tested it, but I'm sure it works on Windows 10 Mobile.

Live Store link:

https://store.live.net.co/app/812 (note: app may not be available yet as Live Store mods haven't approved it yet. Come back tomorrow if it doesn't work)


r/windowsphone 2d ago

Question Can I change what app the search button goes to

3 Upvotes

I am curious if there’s a way to change what app opens when I click the search button on the bottom. I have been trying to find it myself but had no success. If anyone knows how to please help.


r/windowsphone 2d ago

Guide How to unlock the bootloader if your phone stucks at emergency mode or gives "an expected error occured"

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24 Upvotes

What to do if your Windows phone gets stuck at switching to emergency mode or it says an unexpected error occured,

As you guys can understand from the sub This tutorial is for Lumia Windows phones,I am no responsible for Any damage

Warning!!:This is only tested on Lumia 520(Spec A device.If you dont know what This means research it)so it is not certain that it will work with your phone too

First download Windows Device Recovery Tool

Then install Windows Phones İnternals I used 1.2 version.It is recommended you use This too if you have Lumia 520

For ffu files,emergency loaders,sbl3 file,use LumiaDb

After downloading all files first install Windows device recovery tool and restart your PC

After that open Windows phone internals

Connect your phone

Come to unlock bootloader section

İt will say"switch to flash mode"click okay after that your phone will be in the flash mode(say wallahi)

and put all files(sbl3 file,ffu file,loader files,maybe donor ffu file)where it tells you to do so

Click unlock

After it starts If it gets stuck in"switching to emergency mode"—it probably will—close the program and re-open it and click unlock bootloader again and if it says device emergency mode in device name also if you see your phone In the Device Manager section(Windows settings)that says QUSB\\_DLOADER(There shouldn't be a yellow exclamation mark next to it.) then you are going well it will stuck at "Sending Loaders"

Close the program,disconnect the phone,pull out and re-insert the battery,connect the phone again.

Now go to C:/Windows files/Microsoft care suite/Windows recovery tool and open cmd here

You need to flash emergency loaders manually So find your emergency files,they should be in .hex and .mbn formats(Total of two) and write This command:

thor2 -mode emergency -hexfile "insert your hex file" -mbnfile "insert your mbn file"

After This it May give error something like failed to parse ffu file and unknown error,exiting program,IGNORE THEM

Open Windows phone internals again and click unlock bootloader

This time it should start to unlock bootloader

Enjoy your phone


r/windowsphone 2d ago

I can't unlock the bootloader on my Lumia 1320

0 Upvotes

I am trying to unlock AND root my Lumia 1320 running window phone 8.1, bit Wpinternals completely freezes every time i click Switch to Flash-mode.

Any help or alternative method to geet root on WP 8.1??

My goal is install apps and games.


r/windowsphone 3d ago

Discussion METROV LAUNCHER

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40 Upvotes

Been running Metrov Launcher for about a week now and it might be the closest thing to Windows Phone 8.1 without actually owning a dying Lumia. The live tiles pulse and flip exactly like I remember. Weather, calendar, and messages tiles update in real time instead of sitting there like static icons. Resizing tiles feels snappy and the accent color picker changes the whole system tone, not just a wallpaper trim.

The best part is you are not giving anything up to get it. Full Google Play access, a real notification shade, split screen multitasking, all the stuff WP8.1 never had. It is Windows Phone's design language running on top of Android's actual ecosystem instead of a dead app store.

Small details stood out too. The Start screen scroll physics feel right, not laggy or over animated like some launcher mods. The swipe from Start into the alphabetical app list is there. Even the hub style grouping for contacts and photos has been recreated closely.

If you miss the WP8.1 tile interface but do not want to deal with the app availability problems that killed actual Windows phones, this is worth trying. It feels less like a skin and more like a tribute done right.