Updating an LG Optimus 7 (E900) to Windows Phone 7.8

***DISCLAIMER*** THESE INSTRUCTIONS ARE FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND ANY ACTIONS SHOULD ONLY BE ATTEMPTED UNDER THE CONDITION THAT I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE CAUSED TO YOUR HANDSET AS A RESULT. ALL LINKS ARE USED AS REFERENCE TO PEOPLE WHO WORKED OUT HOW TO GET THIS TO WORK. I JUST PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER TO FIND SOMETHING THAT WORKED FOR ME!!!***

*** IN ONE OF THE POSTS THAT I HAVE LINKED TO , IT ALSO STATES THAT THE “BACK DOOR” UPDATE TRICK IS PERFECTLY LEGAL AND SOMETHING THAT MICROSOFT HAVE LEFT IN THERE AS A MEANS TO PUSH THE 7.8 UPDATE OUT TO PEOPLE WHOSE SERVICE PROVIDERS WEREN'T ALLOWING IT AND AS A WAY OF GETTING THE 7.8 UPDATE OUT TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. TO CLARIFY. AS FAR AS I AM AWARE, ALL OF THE INSTRUCTIONS LISTED BELOW ARE PERFECTLY LEGAL! ***

There are a lot of posts out there detailing the relatively easy, but sometimes hit and miss process of upgrading your phone to WP 7.8. I had let my Optimus 7 go to such a degree that I was still running build 7220 when I finally decided enough was enough… it was time to bring this phone kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

To put all this into context. The handset was Orange (UK) branded and network locked. I had been having issues with the occasional re-boot, very rare occasions where it would completely power itself off while on charge and remain off (much to my dismay when I woke up and realised I was late for work having missed my non existent alarm!) and generally poor battery life (although this could quite easily be attributed to normal degrading rather than anything untoward) and other minor buggy issues such as the keyboard disappearing and some live tiles not rendering or updating properly. The phone is developer unlocked but other than that has no special or distinguishing features.

Plugging the phone into a Zune powered laptop and requesting an update returned the answer that my phone was up to date. Likewise, trying and OTA update yielded no better result. It was time to get my hacker gloves on and start looking for an answer…

On to the good stuff. For those who aren't aware, the LG Optimus 7 has a nifty feature enabled whereby you can access and edit the registry through an application called MFG. To be able to access this app, you need to call the number ##634# through the phone App. If the internet isn’t lying to me, it should then take about 2-3 minutes to install on your phone, at which point, it will show up in the menu system like any other app. When you launch the MFG app, you are asked for a password which is 277634#*# or APPMFG#*# if you need something easier to remember it by! Once in, you can access and edit the registry by going to

.. > [7. Engineer Menu] > [6. Other Settings] > [Edit Registry]

I’m not going to explain in any more detail beyond that… if you struggle beyond this point, you’re probably best just leaving the train here because while it doesn't get that tricky, you may run the risk of harming your phone.

Great, so we can get into and edit the registry. There are a couple of very useful reg edits that we can do. One is related to the objective at hand, the other, well, I guess it’s kind of an Easter egg!!!

In the registry settings editor in the MFG App, set the following key to install XAP files without a developer account (I have a legit account so haven’t done this one myself)

Select ROOT_PATH: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Input SUB_PATH: Comm\Security\LVMod
Input KEY and Select data type:  DeveloperUnlockState   DWORD
Input data: 1
Click Set button

Next, create the following registry entry to remove the limit of unsigned apps from 3 to however many you need.

Select ROOT_PATH: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Input SUB_PATH: Software\Microsoft\DeviceReg\Install
Input KEY and Select data type: MaxUnsignedApp   DWORD
Input data: 300

I do find I need to set the MaxUnsignedApps value every time I disconnect / reconnect from my computer.

Anyway, back to the business at hand… We want to get our Optimus 7 bang up to date so rack open some Mountain Dew, get comfy, if it’s anything like mine, this may take a few hours!
There is a back door process in Zune that allows the user to search for an update and trick the system into pushing the update down to Zune while offline. This only works (or seemed to only for for me) with “debranded” phones so our first port of call is back in MFG and back in the Registry Editor. The site member “sadoway” identified how to do this in THIS post

Namely, go to the following key:

Select ROOT_PATH: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
 Input SUB_PATH: System\Platform\DeviceTargetingInfo\
 Input KEY: MobileOperator
 Data Type: STRING

In the post it states that you can leave the String field empty to return a “Fail” but that this completes the debranding. I personally didn’t have any success with this so instead tried the tip at the bottom of the first post, namely to assign the string the following value “000-88”. The registry accepted the change and the next time I plugged in to Zune and searched for an update it identified that there was one available and without needing to trick Zune (at this stage) I was able to get the first update installed (to 7.10.8112.7). At this stage though, I’m still on Mango!

OK, the next great resource for this adventure is over at the great WPCentral where George Ponder wrote a great article called “Forcing the Windows Phone 7.8 update: Camera button not required but patience is.” This is the article that outlines how to trick Zune into pushing an update down to the phone and bypassing any service provider blocks that may be preventing you from doing it. Now this didn't work for me for a long time before I’d gone ahead and done all of the other steps listed above and a few other tips listed within the comments section of the article Link Here. So this is how I got it to work…

1. Make sure you have Zune installed on your computer and that you have been able to sync it to your phone and also that your laptop can connect to the internet (an Ethernet cable directly into the router and the laptop is ideal) as you will also need to be able to quickly disconnect your laptop from the network
2. Once you are happy with this, you will need to shut off all network connectivity on the phone. Wi-Fi OFF, Bluetooth OFF, Data Connection OFF, 3G (OFF) and as a final nail, turn Flight Mode ON.

Now we can move on to the fun stuff! This section is edited (based on my experience) from the original WPCentral Post.

Step by step instructions to force the Windows Phone 7.8 update

1. Connect your Windows Phone to a PC and launch the Zune software
2. Click on Phone > Settings > Update. Allow the software to tell you whether an update is available. This will confirm that you have the ability to connect to the update servers. It should most likely come back and say that your phone is up to date!
   
   
   Time to force the update!!!!!
3. Click into another option (such as Wireless Sync, Linking, Sync Groups, etc.) so that we are not in the update section. Now, make yourself ready to physically disconnect the Ethernet cable (making sure W-Fi- is turned off on your laptop as well if that is the method you are using!)
4. Click back into the Update section and this time disconnect your computer from the internet after 1-2 seconds. Do this by pulling out the Ethernet cable (or if you don’t have a cable and are doing this via Wi-Fi, by disabling Wi-Fi – if you don’t have a physical Wi-Fi button, try Windows Key + X to bring up the Mobility Centre)
• If it says your phone is already up to date, you didn't disconnect quickly enough and need to try this step again.
• If it says it cannot connect to check to see if an update is available, you disconnected too quickly!
• I found, like most other posters that the right timing is roughly around 2 long seconds. So based on the usual timing, 1 – Mississippi – 2 Mississippi – [Unplug]. It’s all about practice really and finding a middle ground between a) and b) above.
• If you find it is returning a response quicker than this, (say after a second it tells you that your software is up to date). You may need to unplug your phone and restart Zune (AKA: go back to step 1)
5. If you have timed it right, within 30 seconds or so and Zune should display a notification that an update is available.
6. Reconnect to the internet by plugging the Ethernet cable back in or turning the Wi-Fi back on… Make sure you are connected then you can continue with the update process through the Zune software. (usually by selecting “Update” at the top of the page which in turn opens up the update process.
7. Depending on what OS build you are starting with, you may be prompted for several OS updates. I found none of them took especially long to do (compared to the ROM installation of Mango when that came out) apart from one of the early updates which took probably between 15 and 25 minutes. Other than that, they were all about 5-10 minutes max.
8. Let the phone update and wait. The final OS build that I managed to get to was 7.10.8862.144. It will not update all of the pre 7.8 ones at once. You will have to repeat the process for each update. Once I got to 7.10.8858.136 (Windows Phone 7.8), it pulled the following two updates through automatically (7.10.8660.142 and 7.10.8660.144)
9. You may also be prompted to install a firmware update at the very end, follow through with this – I wasn't prompted myself (or didn't see it) so can’t confirm if this is the case or not)

Well that’s it. If all has gone well you should now be running the latest build of Windows Phone 7.8 and hopefully that should solves any lingering issues you may have had. For what it’s worth, the updates have solved the “keyboard disappearing when typing” issue and the interface definitely runs a lot smoother and quicker than before.

I haven’t been able to properly road test it to its fullest so can’t comment on all of the new features. MFG still works after the update so the ability to side load .XAP files should still remain (if that’s your thing). The new interface with the three different sized tile options along with the better use of the space available (by removing the right hand bar and dropping the menu arrow to below the lowest place app on the right) certainly makes the screen pop. Whereas before I used a dark background with red tiles, now I use a light background with Xbox green tiles – and it looks spectacular!

If you do try this, I hope this has been both successful and educational and remember, a Jedi is for life, not just for Christmas. Is it May 4th yet?

@TheGrandMadness