Hack for unlocked HTC phones gets NoDo right now

We now know that Microsoft is doing a controlled, phased roll-out of 'NoDo', starting with unbranded phones evidently in Europe. That means a potentially prolonged delay for many users (and between us, we've just heard that AT&T users have a looong wait).

The good news is there is a 'hack' that can be done for HTC phones that will basically "unbrand" them allowing them to get 'NoDo', well, right now. Coming from some of team ChevronWP7 (Chris Walsh and Raphael Rivera) is a tricky edit that will enable this to be done:

Your device needs to be dev-unlocked for this to work. Sorry folks.

  1. Download this zip file and deploy the 3 xap files onto your device.
  2. Run the ChevronWP7.Ringtones.xap and wait till it displays “Ringtones added… and CustClear.provxml underneath”
  3. Run the TouchXplorer app, navigate to My DocumentsMy Ringtones click on CustClear.provxml and select Copy from the Application Bar.
  4. Navigate back inside TouchXplorer to the Windows folder.
  5. Select paste from the Application Bar, this should scroll right to the bottom and put a copy of CustClear.provxml in the Windows folder.
  6. Now run the Connection Setup application and click on the Ok button (it’s the one with the tick).

And now you’re done and free to re-connect to Zune and check for updates.

Now there is one caveat here we can think of: T-Mobile HD7 users may want to hold off. That's because that device has the special T-Mo bands and radio while the unlocked HD7 does not (or at the very least, could complicate things), so you may want to consider that if you're in that situation. Still, for the AT&T Surround users, sounds like you could do this, assuming you've jailbroken your phone for one last hoorah.

Update: Chris Walsh lets us know T-Mo HD7 users are good to go (hey, that rhymed); the update only modifies the OS, not the radio.

Update 2: Bad news is we're hearing non-Euro users are only getting the pre-NoDo update with this technique :-/

Source: My Coding Adventures (blog); via @ChrisWalshie

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.