The Windows 11 preview just came out a few days ago. But already, a student managed to run it on an old Windows Phone.
Microsoft discontinued the Windows Phone mobile platform about six years ago. Still, it’s nice to hear that it could run the latest Windows 11 desktop OS.
Gustave Monce posted a short video (see above) showing Windows 11 running on a 5-year-old Lumia 950 XL, one of the initial devices to run with Windows 10 Mobile.
The video is just a demonstration that the latest desktop OS can run decently on an old, 5.7-inch smartphone. Albeit, animation speed is not as impressive. Also, it doesn’t look like the most appealing interface you’d use daily on a smartphone.
Still, it’s a big achievement for the people behind it. In an interview, Monce said that this project started five years ago when Windows 10 Mobile was about to be obsolete. Monce partnered with another engineer, Bingxing Wang, to run full Windows versions on mobile devices.
In a statement, Monde said:
“As time went on and we started talking about it, discussion groups formed and in turn we had a community of people interested in running full Windows 10 on Lumia 950s,”
“We’re now basically a team of about 15 people, and we’ve made a lot of progress.”
Monce and the team were able to port and reverse-engineer drivers to run Windows 11 on a Windows Phone. They even wrote their own, too.
The team created a dedicated website with guides, tools, and documentation that will help people bring Windows 10 and 11 OS to old Windows Phones.
But since Windows 10 and 11 are specifically built for desktop computers, some smartphone features don’t work or glitchy. For one, the cameras fail to work, battery efficiency is bad, and call/SMS breaks occasionally.
Source: The Verge