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| Windows 11 can run on Lumia 950 XL |
A preview version of Windows 11 was released earlier this week, but a student managed to run Microsoft's latest operating system on his Windows Phone.
Student engineer Gustave Muncie posted a short video showing Windows 11 on the Lumia 950 XL, one of the first devices to come with Windows 10 Mobile.
This phone is also the last Windows phone before Microsoft stopped supporting its mobile operating system.
Windows 11 fits a 5.7 inch screen, but the same doesn't happen in terms of animation speed.
While Windows 11 can be used on the Lumia 950 XL, that's not the point, but it's the latest addition to run a full version of Windows on Windows Phone devices for the past five years.
Muncie said that it all started 5 years ago when Windows 10 Mobile was on the verge of demise. Munsey worked with colleague Wang Bingxing to come up with the idea to run full Windows on these phones.
Mengxi explained that over time we started talking about it. A focus group was formed. Thus, we have a group of people who are interested in fully running Windows 10 with a Lumia 950. We are basically a team of about 15 people now and have made great strides.
The team converted the driver, reverse engineered it to run Windows 11 on Windows Phone, and even wrote their driver.
“I wouldn't say we did it too fast,” Mansi said. "It took us four years to get to where we are now." But I'm glad we didn't have a lot of paperwork when we got here.
Windows 11 up to Lumia 950 XL
He added, "Given all of these tasks for Windows 10 and the work we've done previously to support Windows 10x, Windows 11 is a natural path that doesn't take much time."
Muncie and the team set up a website for their project with tools, guides, and documentation for integrating Windows 11 and Windows 10 into these old Windows phones.
Everything is not perfect, the camera is not working, the battery life is low, sometimes calls and texts get stuck due to changes in the Microsoft operating system.
But it's a great project to see engineers and developers push the hardware that Microsoft has abandoned.
The Lumia 950 series is about five years old. The fact that a group of people ported Windows 11 proved that these old phones can still be used.