The ChevronWP7 unlocking tool is now available for Windows Phone 7.x devices according to the official ChevronWP7 team blog. The unlocking tool was first released in late 2010 by Rafael Rivera, Long Zheng and Chris Walsh. The tool allowed users to run unauthorized, homebrew apps which had not been run through the Windows Phone Marketplace.
Unlocking your Windows Phone is similar to rooting your Android device or jailbreaking your iOS device and gives you the opportunity to test applications before having to pay the $99 a year fee and also gives developers the opportunity to try new applications which may generally not pass Microsoft's Marketplace standards.
Microsoft requested that the tool be removed and the developers did accordingly.
The tool has now been re released as a paid tool by the ChevronWP7 team in collaboration with Microsoft. If you are interested in trying the tool out for yourself. You can do so by following the guide below.
- Visit ChevronWP7 Labs and login with your Windows Live ID.
- Purchase ChevronWP7 unlock tool ($9 per device). You can use Paypal or a credit card.
- Download and install the unlock tool.
- Launch the unlock tool and follow the onscreen instructions
- The device will be put into an unlock queue and be unlocked subsequently.