[VHD] [Download] [Info] Windows Phone 8.1 Preview

[compu829]

All, I am starting this thread to chronicle what new features I can see in the extracted vhd. from the SDK. I will be uploading it here so you all can play along, too!

I am hoping to see if I can "hack" this vhd to enable some bonus features in the emulator. Also, it appears it might be flashable to some devices as all the proper boot parts are present. Enjoy!

Partition list:

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          238 GB      0 B
  Disk 1    Online           10 GB      0 B

DISKPART> select disk 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> detail disk

Msft Virtual Disk SCSI Disk Device
Disk ID: AE420040
Type   : Virtual
Status : Online
Path   : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 2
Location Path : UNAVAILABLE
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only  : No
Boot Disk  : No
Pagefile Disk  : No
Hibernation File Disk  : No
Crashdump Disk  : No
Clustered Disk  : No

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 4     H   EFIESP       FAT    Partition     32 MB  Healthy
    G:\EFIESP\
  Volume 5     F   DPP          FAT    Partition     10 MB  Healthy
    G:\DPP\
  Volume 6     G   MainOS       NTFS   Partition   2264 MB  Healthy
  Volume 7     I   CRASHDUMP    FAT32  Partition   2304 MB  Healthy
    G:\CrashDump\
  Volume 8     J   Data         NTFS   Partition   5627 MB  Healthy
    G:\Data\

DISKPART>

Features list (In no particular order)
1. Podcast support (including new "Podcast Marketplace")!
2. Xbox Music will support a "Music locker" in the cloud. Service hasn't launched yet.
3. New "LOCKANDWALLPAPER" control panel - Possibly set a wallpaper behind the live tiles?
4. New "Notification center" control panel - (You guys already knew that)
5. New Voices to choose from! They are named "Kate", "Mark", and "Zira"
- Voices have the ability to update themselves in the background.
6. New "Navigation bar" control panel

Preinstalled Apps List
1. File Manager! (appx)
2. BatterySense (appx) http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/s...playname/c551f76f-3368-42bb-92df-7bfbb9265636
3. Bing Finance (xap) http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/bing-finance/1e0440f1-7abf-4b9a-863d-177970eefb5e
4. Bing Food (xap) http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/bing-food-drink/cc512389-0456-430f-876b-704b17317de2
5. Bing Health (xap) http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/bing-health-fitness/cbb8c3bd-99e8-4176-ad8c-95ec6a3641c2
6. Bing News (xap) http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/bing-news/9c3e8cad-6702-4842-8f61-b8b33cc9caf1
7. Bing Sports (xap) http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/bing-sports/0f4c8c7e-7114-4e1e-a84c-50664db13b17
8 Bing Travel (xap) http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/bing-travel/19cd0687-980b-4838-8880-5f68aba1671e
9. Bing Weather (xap) http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/bing-weather/63c2a117-8604-44e7-8cef-df10be3a57c8
10. Calendar (appx)
11. Podcast (appx)
12. GamesHub (xap)
13. IE Tile Manager (xap)
14. Microsoft Media PlayReady Client (appx)
15. Microsoft VC LIBs 12 (appx) http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/s...-package/5dec6302-3af3-4a4b-bc6e-d800779376b9
16. Microsoft VC LIBs 12 Preview (appx)
17. SkyDrive WPB (xap)
18. Xbox Music (xap) http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/xbox-music/d2b6a184-da39-4c9a-9e0a-8b589b03dec0
19. Xbox Video (xap) http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/xbox-video/6affe59e-0467-4701-851f-7ac026e21665

Observations
1. All the interesting EFIESP\Windows\Packages files (xml and reg) appear to be encrypted now.
2. there is an "FFUloader.exe" efi app at EFIESP\Windows\System32\boot
3. .appx files can still be opened in 7zip/winzip/etc
4 FileManager appx has the following capabilities: ID_CAP_PM_1ST_PARTY" "ID_CAP_PUBLIC_FOLDER_FULL"
5. Appx file structure is quite different from the xap structure we know so well. Great writeup on .appx can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsappd...ing-a-simple-and-secure-app-package-appx.aspx

SoCs targeted in test:

<FeatureID>SOC_QC8960_TEST</FeatureID>

<FeatureID>SOC_QC8960_Test_4gb</FeatureID>

<FeatureID>SOC_QC8960_LOWCOST</FeatureID>

<FeatureID>SOC_QC8974_TEST</FeatureID>

<FeatureID>SOC_QC8x26_TEST</FeatureID>

<FeatureID>SOC_QC8X26_USESD_TEST</FeatureID>

A quick google of the MSM8974 chipset...reveals that it is used in the Galaxy Note 3 and theLG G2! I am speculating that there is something similar coming out soon for WP.

 

[-W_O_L_F-]

It's about 30% of all partitions.

 

[compu829]

I am pretty sure it has everything that needed to "patch" the appropriate partitions into an existing GDR3 image. The end result would be something that was now flashable to a specific device.

for comparison, here is the output from the mounted VHD from a T-Mobile Branded Lumia 521

DISKPART> detail disk

Msft Virtual Disk SCSI Disk Device
Disk ID: {AE420040-13DD-41F2-AE7F-0DC35854C8D7}
Type   : Virtual
Status : Online
Path   : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 3
Location Path : UNAVAILABLE
Current Read-only State : Yes
Read-only  : No
Boot Disk  : No
Pagefile Disk  : No
Hibernation File Disk  : No
Crashdump Disk  : No
Clustered Disk  : No

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 9                      RAW    Partition      8 MB  Healthy
    K:\DPP\
  Volume 10                     FAT    Partition     64 MB  Healthy
    K:\EFIESP\
  Volume 11                     FAT    Partition     88 MB  Healthy
    K:\MMOS\
  Volume 12    K                NTFS   Partition   1785 MB  Healthy
  Volume 13                     NTFS   Partition   5374 MB  Healthy
    K:\Data\

DISKPART>

*EDIT* Nevermind...the vhd is compiled targeting x86 instead of ARM.

 

[dragonide]

File Manager ???

 

[ngame]

File Manager ???

File *MANAGER* no
File picker as you can see in Windows 8 Modern (Metro) Apps

 

[lukas_ita]

A quick google of the MSM8974 chipset...reveals that it is used in the Galaxy Note 3 and theLG G2! I am speculating that there is something similar coming out soon for WP.

It shuold be the Snapdragon 800, used on L1520 and Lumia icon yet

 

[dragon_76]

File *MANAGER* no
File picker as you can see in Windows 8 Modern (Metro) Apps

That comes from the SkyDrive app built into Windows 8.1. You can use SkyDrive as a file manager, although rudimentary in my opinion. I'm sure it is the same thing in WP8.1

The actual name of the SkyDrive app on Windows 8.1 actually IS file manager or something like that.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

 

[DaviUnic]

In case anyone is interested how to enable the new wi-fi settings page: after you've loaded the SOFTWARE hive in RegEdit, you need to navigate to SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SecurityManager\Applications. There's two changes we need to make here:

1. Make a new multi-string value named C:\PROGRAMS\WIFIUXBLUE\WIFIUXCPL.EXE, set the value to WIFIUXBLUE
2. Navigate to WIFIUXBLUE subkey and make a new multi-string value named ApplicationBinaries, set the value to C:\PROGRAMS\WIFIUXBLUE\WIFIUXCPL.EXE.

After you make the above changes, unload the hive and fire up the emulator/hyper-v VM.

 

[moonlits]

Having failed to install the whole SDK a couple of days ago I went poking around in the installer and found the VHD myself, and I thought just for laughs I'd try booting it natively on a couple of netbooks I had to hand. Here's an eeePC 701SD and a Samsung NC10 booting the image:

Note: WP8.1 does not appear to be able to boot from USB, at least this particular image of this particular build, it must be booted from a non-removable drive. The eeePC I have booting from a CompactFlash card installed internally via the miniPCIe-style SSD slot, and the NC10 has a SATA HDD.

Neither of these machines have touchscreens, so navigation requires the touchpad, which is a little awkward. Worse, there's no indication of where the mouse is pointing, so significant guesswork is needed. The NC10 in particular is pretty smooth, although it's not obvious in the video, one-handed touchpad use makes it difficult to get the kinetic scrolling to kick in.

Just for fun, I tweaked some reg values to correct the model name etc.



Edit:
Interestingly, the power button on each netbook performs exactly as the power button on a real phone would, at least as far as a single short press will turn off the screen as if it's going to sleep, and a single power button press after that will wake it back up. F12 also appears to serve the same function. The back button, which is mapped to Esc, seems to be flaky or non-functional after waking it back up, though. None of the other keyboard keys seem to do anything at all, except F5 or F6, I forget which, and I forget what it did, might have sent me back to the Start Screen, I don't remember.

I have no idea if it's possible to cram any Windows 8.1 drivers into this thing, my knowledge doesn't run that deep, but I'd be interested to hear of possible ways to make this more functional, most of the hardware stuff seems to have dummy drivers which do nothing. Unfortunately neither of these netbooks have Windows 8 compatible graphics chipsets, and the eeePC's Intel GMA915 isn't even capable of running Aero, there were no Aero-capable drivers released for Vista/7. I don't know whether the resolution in Windows Phone 8.1 can be forced, but I did try tweaking some registry keys regarding resolution but it didn't appear to do anything. In the About page under Settings however it does show that the resolution of each netbook is 640x480 and 800x600 respectively, which are the highest standard 4:3 resolutions they're capable of without the correct driver. App resolution is still 480x800.

eeePC:



NC10:



I also found a shortcut to cmd.exe in the image, but no cmd.exe binary, is it possible to get this kind of access? I didn't expect it to work, but I did try copying cmd.exe from Windows 8.1 32bit into the Calc7 folder, replacing Calc7.exe so I'd have an easy place to try launching it from, but unsurprisingly this long shot didn't do anything, the Calculator button in the apps list simply did nothing at all when pressed.

I also tried booting in VMWare with different RAM settings, below 128MB it gets a bit hairy, 112MB will get it to the Start Screen but it fails to run Office, at 92MB it fails to arrive at the Start Screen, it just sits accessing the boot media, looking like it's attempting to load but failing, I left it for 30 minutes and it never progressed beyond the blackness after the boot splash. At 64MB it doesn't even show the boot splash, it simply shows a single underscore and stops.

 

[Sunius1]

For the cmd.exe: you can't run desktop applications because they are linked with MSVCRT.dll, Kernel32.dll and NTDLL.dll on the PC, and their version probably don't match on the phone. However, if you were to copy those DLLs to same folder as executable on the phone, it might work.

 

[moonlits]

For the cmd.exe: you can't run desktop applications because they are linked with MSVCRT.dll, Kernel32.dll and NTDLL.dll on the PC, and their version probably don't match on the phone. However, if you were to copy those DLLs to same folder as executable on the phone, it might work.

May be worth a try. Another concern I had though was the UI, how would WP handle a desktop app? There's no desktop and no windows, would it just draw it full-screen?

 

[DaviUnic]

I've been looking at the settings for the navigation bar in the registry. Dimension for all the virtual buttons are stored for each resolution sepparately. What's interesting is that there were not 4, but 6 resolutions listed. Besides the WVGA, 720p, WXGA and 1080p, there were also qHD (960×540) and QHD (2560×1440). What's up with that? Are they adding support for these new resolutions?

 

[moonlits]

For the cmd.exe: you can't run desktop applications because they are linked with MSVCRT.dll, Kernel32.dll and NTDLL.dll on the PC, and their version probably don't match on the phone. However, if you were to copy those DLLs to same folder as executable on the phone, it might work.

That's a negatory. I tried putting those files in the same folder as the exe and I also tried putting them in System32, renaming the originals as necessary, I still get nothing more than the tap animation when I press Calculator. I'm still sure there's more to it though, I don't understand how it would render the cmd window, and there may be code signing issues, I don't know, I can only really guess at this point.

 

[GoodDayToDie]

@DaviUnic: That is in fact what they are probably doing. qHD (one quarter of "Full HD" AKA 1080p AKA 1920x1080) is not a very exciting resolution - only a little better than the WP8 minimum, well below the WXGA that was the best option at RTM - but QHD (Quad HD, where "HD" here means 1280x720 and thus QHD is 2560x1440) is definitely interesting. Also a little scary... I've got a $300 27" QHD monitor, and that is a *lot* of pixels! Putting that on a phone would be nuts... awesome, but kind of insane!

Maybe they're adding projector / external display support? Some Android phones can drive external displays, which would be a reason to support the high resolutions sometimes found on desktop monitors...

 

[DaviUnic]

Maybe they're adding projector / external display support? Some Android phones can drive external displays, which would be a reason to support the high resolutions sometimes found on desktop monitors...

Screen mirroring. It's coming in 8.1, and allows you to project your screen onto a TV/monitor/any external display device. So yeah, I guess that explains it...

 

[trinaldi]

Wow, nice work, man!

I'll be watching this.

 

[petard]

Having failed to install the whole SDK a couple of days ago I went poking around in the installer and found the VHD myself, and I thought just for laughs I'd try booting it natively on a couple of netbooks I had to hand. Here's an eeePC 701SD and a Samsung NC10 booting the image:
....

Did you do anything special to get this to work? I dumped the WP8.0 VHD onto a disk and tried getting it to boot on my ThinkPad X230T. It shows the Windows logo and the hard drive churns for a while but it eventually settles on a plain black screen. I'm downloading the WP8.1 SDK but it's going slow.

 

[moonlits]

Did you do anything special to get this to work? I dumped the WP8.0 VHD onto a disk and tried getting it to boot on my ThinkPad X230T. It shows the Windows logo and the hard drive churns for a while but it eventually settles on a plain black screen. I'm downloading the WP8.1 SDK but it's going slow.

Nope, I mounted the VHD in Windows, which should work in 7 or 8, then used HDD Raw Copy to clone it to a 16GB CF card for the eeePC and the 160GB HDD in the NC10, then booted from them as if was just regular Windows, and it started up as normal.

It will fail to boot, and restart somewhere during the boot process, if you try it with a USB disk, at least that's what it did for me, so it must be an internal IDE or SATA connected drive of some kind.


Edit: Also, a tip for others trying this out, you must mount and clone or convert the VHD to a raw image first before trying to write it to a drive, simply imaging the VHD file itself to a drive will not work, it's in a non-flat format and will not expand to its full size upon writing. It needs to be the full size image. The easiest way to do that is as I've written above, mount the VHD in Disk Management, it will appear as a regular drive in Explorer, you can then clone the now fully accessible virtual drive to another disk, or take a full image for future use.

 

[petard]

Nope, I mounted the VHD in Windows, which should work in 7 or 8, then used HDD Raw Copy to clone it to a 16GB CF card for the eeePC and the 160GB HDD in the NC10, then booted from them as if was just regular Windows, and it started up as normal.

It will fail to boot, and restart somewhere during the boot process, if you try it with a USB disk, at least that's what it did for me, so it must be an internal IDE or SATA connected drive of some kind.

Yeah it did the reboot once but then it started up but the screen is blank. It shows the Windows flag while it's booting but after the hard drive is done churning it's a blank screen. Probably doesn't have my graphics drivers. :/

The sleep button turns the LCD on and off, so the system appears to be running, just not showing anything. I tried putting the intel graphics driver in Windows\INF but it didn't seem to do anything.

 

[moonlits]

Yeah it did the reboot once but then it started up but the screen is blank. It shows the Windows flag while it's booting but after the hard drive is done churning it's a blank screen. Probably doesn't have my graphics drivers. :/

The sleep button turns the LCD on and off, so the system appears to be running, just not showing anything. I tried putting the intel graphics driver in Windows\INF but it didn't seem to do anything.

Hm, both of my netbooks have Intel graphics, albeit older ones, both GMA9xx based, so I've at least had it working without the dedicated driver on an Intel chipset, did you try without modifying it? How is the drive hooked up to the machine?

Also, try hitting the F1-F12 buttons, one of them is Home I think, maybe try Esc too. In fact, press everything, see what happens, lol. AFAIK, none of them do anything destructive, most of the keyboard does nothing.