Windows Phone Internals, a tool built to help gain root access on Lumia devices, is now open source. The tool's developer, Rene Lergner, has released the source code for Windows Phone Internals on GitHub, turning it over to the remaining Windows Phone community for further development.
As Lergner explains on his website (via MSPU), the impetus for open sourcing Windows Phone Internals is that he no longer has the time to pursue active development himself. From Lergner:
I uploaded all the source-code of Windows Phone Internals to Github. I also created some tooling which helped me developing Windows Phone Internals. I will upload this to Github too somewhere soon. I will still do some development, but don't have much time for it lately. So I hope other developers and hackers can contribute too. If Microsoft will ever release a Surface phone, I will have a new challenge and work on that.
Earlier in 2018, Windows Phone Internals got its first update since 2015, allowing it to work on all Windows Phone 8 and Windows 10 Mobile-based Lumia devices.
The tool itself basically automates the processes required to unlock the bootloader on any Lumia, disabling security features that would normally prevent you from gaining root access. Once root access has been achieved, you can do things like flash custom ROMs, create full device backups, and use your Lumia in Mass Storage Mode. The tool has also opened up space for developers to cook up some interesting (if questionably useful) hacks, like getting Windows 10 on ARM working on Lumia devices.
Interested developers can check out the full source code for Windows Phone Internals at GitHub now.
