With developers excited about Windows Phone 7 and hackers attempting to jailbreak the device, it looks like Windows Phone 7 users desiring to create a custom ROM will have a serious hurdle to overcome thanks to three simple letters.
Although there have been reports of people porting over WP7 to the HTC HD2 and some chatter of people being able to make ROMs (though not load them), there may yet be one final hurdle that could be very difficult to overcome: PVK.
PVK are the private keys Microsoft evidently uses to sign off on the OS that is also tied to the hardware. Specifically, some aspect of the OS looks for and then pulls these keys from the device motherboard for verification. If the keys cannot be found, the motherboard must be replaced or serviced. While elements of the phone/OS might still work without the PVK key, core elements such as Xbox, Marketplace, Windows Live or Zune…basically any “cloud service” will not. (Windows Phone Central)
Truth be told the PVK barrier will not prevent hackers from finding a way to install a custom ROM upon the phone, although it could be awhile before we see one unveiled to the masses.
While Microsoft understandably has to protect their Marketplace, Xbox and Windows Live services from manipulation (for obvious reasons), hopefully they will provide greater efforts to work with the hacker community instead of against them.
Originally posted on November 22, 2010 @ 2:55 pm