Many of us who tried out the Windows Phone 7 simulator were disappointed to discover the simulator didn’t contain a lot of the functionality that was being shown off at Mix10. It turns out Dan Ardelean has published a modified or ‘unlocked’ version of the simulator that contains virtually everything that was displayed. The front page is now full of apps that work, the settings menu is a long list of options for those apps.
Unfortunately the download of the .bin file has now been pulled, but I was lucky enough to get a copy. Check out the 10 minute video of Windows Phone 7.
Update
I’ve also spent some time going through all the settings screens. Check out the 2nd video for all the details.
Update 2
Ina Fried from cnet spoke to Microsoft about the unlock and got the following response, saying that they expected this to happen.
We are extremely pleased with the level of excitement we’re seeing for Windows Phone Developer Tools. When we decided to provide a Windows Phone 7 Series Emulator as part of the tools, we anticipated that people would attempt to unlock and explore the code. We have been very clear that the emulator is based on early code and is not reflective of the final user experience. Windows Phone 7 Series is still under development. The UI has been disabled to avoid confusion and allow developers to focus on testing applications on the underlying platform. We continue to recommend that developers use the emulator as provided to avoid any issues and unpredictability that may be introduced by an unlocked version."
Update 3
Dan has posted the Windows Phone 7 unlock ‘How to’ now.
More @ istartedsomething
