How To Use Windows Device Recovery Tool: Faq, Windows Device Recovery Tool: Faq

Windows Device Recovery Tool goes 'offline', but there's a patch!

Published by Steve Litchfield at 6:24 UTC, May 4th 2021

As of a few days ago, Microsoft killed theWindows Device Recovery Tool (WDRT) on their servers. As I write this you can"t download the Windows application & if you try lớn run an installed copy of WDRT then it fails at the first hurdle when trying to lớn check "home" for a possible application update. The good news is that there"s a patched version of the tool that still works just fine - at your own risk, of course! UPDATE: Now restored at Microsoft"s kết thúc.

Bạn đang xem: Windows device recovery tool: faq

UPDATE: This has now been restored at Microsoft"s over, which is good because it shows they still care, despite the over of official support for Lumias. However, it"s worth grabbing the patched version anyway, as a) it works just as well, and b) it"ll come in handy when WDRT goes "out" again!

Original news story follows...

________________

Windows Device Recovery Tool has been a Microsoft staple in the Windows Phone world for a decade. Essentially it looks at what"s connected (e.g. a Lumia 735 below) & then looks up the latestofficialfirmware for it (as in retail software shipped in the phone when new just before it stopped being made) and installs it, wiping the entire phone but letting you downgrade gracefully from, in my case Windows 10 sản phẩm điện thoại to Windows Phone 8.1. (Yes, yes, look elsewhere on this site (e.g. here) for tutorials on going the other way around!)

The first thing the tool does though, is check on Microsoft"s servers for an updated version of itself - và this is currently failing. It"s not clear whether this is permanent or whether Microsoft will care enough to investigate và fix it, but given that all versions of Windows Phone & Windows 10 Smartphone are long out of official support, I"d bet it"s not a priority in Seattle.

However, some helpful person has deconstructed WDRT, hacked out the line of code that phoned trang chủ, & then reassembled it. There are copies online in many places, but it"s also up on my OneDrive sầu here. Obviously, grab it at your own risk - I checked it for malware, but there are zero guarantees và we take no responsibility if somthing goes wrong, on your PC or on your connected phone!

Running the installation as Administrator under Windows 10 yields this set-up menu. Note that you probably already have sầu the drivers, but the tool will try và install them again anyway - just cliông chồng past any information messages about the drivers already being up to date!

Running the patched WDRT skips the update check, thankfully, so it"s straight into lớn the device detection - in this case a Lumia 735 that I wanted to revert to Windows Phone 8.1...

Xem thêm: Phần Mềm Xóa File Cứng Đầu Uninstaller, Top 5 Phần Mềm Xóa File Cứng Đầu Trên Máy Tính

The phone is detected &, indeed, there"s Windows Phone 8.1 Update 2 (i.e. Windows build 9651) ready to be downloaded (down from a "pretkết thúc Lumia 950 XL" status on build 15254!)

The usual checks all seem to work & it"s then into lớn downloading (usually 1GB or so, so it"ll take a while)...

...and installing, here with phokhổng lồ proof, from an old Surface Pro that I keep around for hacking & flashing! It all went smoothly và on the first time of asking.

So it seems that the only bit broken at the moment is the WDRT update check, but if this is indeed Microsoft"s servers gradually "forgetting" about Windows Phone then the next stage might well be that the OS images (FFUs) will disappear from Microsoft"s servers too, which complicates things still further. If you"re worried about this or if you"re reading this significantly after Spring 2021 then it might be worth you either archiving the firmware for your specific phone from LumiaFirmware or by using WDRT và then copying the contents of the (by mặc định hidden)relevant folders in C:ProgramDataMicrosoftPackages...

If some of these articles are getting a little techy then sorry - but at this stage in Windows Phone 8.1"s life, in particular, all that"s LEFT is hackery và DIY solutions. It comes to all platforms a few years after official support ends!

Data points welcome on how you get on with this tool - the download form size & installation all seem 100% legitimate khổng lồ me, but - again - no guarantees!