Safe! Phone recovery tool for Windows 10 preview is confirmed by Microsoft

The Windows 10 preview for phones is expected to drop sometime this week for a subset of Windows Phones. Microsoft has been quiet on exact features that will (or won't) be present in the initial build, but one thing we do know is there are some quirky bugs due to it being pre-release software.

Previously, Microsoft's Gabriel Aul has hinted that a recovery tool would be available. Earlier this morning on Twitter, he confirmed that news in a response to a question about its availability.

Presumably those who agree to install the preview version of Windows 10 for phones can use some software to restore their phone fully to Windows Phone 8.1.1. Details of how that works, of course, are not known. It is not clear if a user needs a PC to do the restore, or if this is something that can be performed on the phone without an external device.

Regardless, at least for now, the risk of installing Windows 10 on your phone just dropped a little bit. If you need more information about the Windows Insider program and whether you should jump in, read our guide on what it means.

Source: Gabriel Aul; Thanks, Jan K., Bata B., and Noman Q., for the tips!

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.