Only Select Phones Will Get Windows 10 Creators Update

Next week, Windows 10 Creators Update is scheduled to begin making its way to Windows smartphones. But corporate customers and users who were hoping to extend the life of older Windows Phone devices may be out of luck.

Just before the weekend, the Redmond, Wash., software maker released a list of 11 mobile devices (and some variants) that will be eligible for the Windows Insider early access program once the Windows 10 Creators update is released.

It also serves as a list of devices that are slated to receive the update.

Windows 10 Creators Update

“Devices not on this list will not officially receive the Windows 10 Creators Update nor will they receive any future builds from our Development Branch that we release as part of the Windows Insider Program,” announced Dona Sarkar, a software engineer in Windows and Devices Group and head of the Windows Insider program at Microsoft, in an April 14 blog post.

“However, Windows Insiders who have devices not on this list can still keep these devices on the Windows 10 Creators Update at their own risk knowing that it’s unsupported.”

Here’s the list of supported devices:

• Alcatel IDOL 4S
• Alcatel OneTouch Fierce XL
• HP Elite x3
• Microsoft Lumia 550
• Microsoft Lumia 640/640XL
• Microsoft Lumia 650
• Microsoft Lumia 950/950 XL
• MouseComputer MADOSMA Q601
• SoftBank 503LV
• Trinity NuAns NEO
• VAIO Phone Biz

Sarkar went on to acknowledge that many users will be disappointed to learn that their devices will no longer be supported. In Microsoft’s defense, she suggested that the mobile operating system update did not provide an acceptable user experience on the aging devices that didn’t make the list.

Developers, meanwhile, are advised to set Windows 10 Creators Update as the minimum platform target in the Visual Studio IDE (integrated development environment).

Microsoft also released Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 15204, which includes a new privacy page that allows users to select the data collection settings during the setup process. Similar to new front-and-center privacy tools in the latest desktop version of the operating system, the mobile flavor now allows users to determine how much system and usage information they wish to share with Microsoft.

In addition, Build 15204 for mobile includes a fix for a bug that prevented the on-screen keyboard from appearing when users tapped on a text input field using the Microsoft Edge browser.

Attentive Insiders will also notice that the build numbers for the PC and mobile versions of pre-release Windows 10 updates no longer sync up.

“This is a result of more work we’re doing to converge code into OneCore—the heart of Windows across PC, tablet, phone, IoT [internet of things], HoloLens, Xbox and more as we continue to develop new improvements for Windows 10 Mobile and our enterprise customers,” Sarkar claimed.

OneCore is a set of APIs (application programming interfaces) and DDIs (device driver interfaces) that allow developers to target multiple Windows devices—spanning desktops, mobile and IoT hardware—with the same code.

Quiz: What do you know about Windows 10?

Originally published on eWeek