Database Develop

developer unlock wp8?

Hi
I am thinking about paying the 99$ fee and was wondering if I can developer unlock my Samsung ativ s or a lumia 928?
and if I do can I sideload the recently pulled youtube xap onto my phone and for that matter maybe 7.x homebrew apps onto wp8?

noelito said:
Hi
I am thinking about paying the 99$ fee and was wondering if I can developer unlock my Samsung ativ s or a lumia 928?
and if I do can I sideload the recently pulled youtube xap onto my phone and for that matter maybe 7.x homebrew apps onto wp8?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't looked into it much, but I believe that you can only sideload 3 individual applications onto it. All modern Xaps are encrypted, too, and we don't have any way to decrypt them, so even if you could get it you likely couldn't sideload it.

i see
netham45 said:
I haven't looked into it much, but I believe that you can only sideload 3 individual applications onto it. All modern Xaps are encrypted, too, and we don't have any way to decrypt them, so even if you could get it you likely couldn't sideload it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well i was wanting to factory reset my ativ and unlock it and sideload the youtube xap because i inadvertently put too any apn apps on my ativ s to try and get internet sharing to work.
because of this every time i soft reset the phone it takes a solid 5 minutes or more to get the internet connection back cause off all the apns floating around in settings that i can't uninstall
i love version 1 of the Microsoft youtube app overhaul and don't want to give it up with a factory reset, i am also thinking about selling my ativ for the lack fo decent oem camera software and go with the lumia 928 but once again i want to get that youtube app back onto whatever phone im using
but like you said they are encrypted anyway which is bad to hear, sigh are they ever going to jail break wp8, i am languishing here without a custom rom, if they could somehow crack wp8 and my ativ s , then my ativ s could be a super phone with all of nokia and htc software installed too
sigh!

You could simply use another YouTube App like MetroTube. I still prefer it over Microsoft's now pulled App and you don't have to play around with Unlocks and what not...

I developer unlocked my HTC 8x a while ago, and I can tell you the following:
1. If you developer unlock you device for $99/yr, you can sideload as many apps as you want. The limitation of 3 only applies to student accounts.
2. Any xap from the Windows Phone store can be sideloaded, as long as it doesn't require Interop Unlock.
3. The Xap files are just specially packaged zip files, so you can edit them with a tool such as 7zip.
4. If you downloaded an xap from the Microsoft store, and then try to sideload it, it will fail, until you delete "WMAppPRHeader.xml" from the xap. This also will "break"
updates for the app as new ones come out in the store.
Hope that helps!

Can I:
1. Sideload 7.x homebrew caps?
2. Sideload the Microsoft YouTube app that was pulled? I have the xap, so I should delete that file you mentioned?
3. Do I use the side load program that you use on your desk top (I forgot the name) in the chevron wp7 days
Someone had told me offhand regarding the YouTube xap that it is encrypted and useless to try and side load anyway, is this true?
Thank you very much for your help!
Sent from my SGH-T899M using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

Sideloading WP7 apps will "work" except that most WP7 homebrew either requires Interop Unlock (which we don't have yet) or requires "root" privileges (which we don't have yet). So... not a lot of use.

GoodDayToDie said:
Sideloading WP7 apps will "work" except that most WP7 homebrew either requires Interop Unlock (which we don't have yet) or requires "root" privileges (which we don't have yet). So... not a lot of use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you think it will be easier to gain interop-unlock if the phone would already be dev-unlocked?
If this would be, i guess i would pay the 99$ to dev-unlock my Lumia 920, if it helps the community

I can't open Xap to remove "WMAppPRHeader.xml" (DRM protect)?

You have to change the xap with 7zip and it will turn into a zip file with additional files inside, I would like to know if I deleted "wmappprheaderxml" in Microsoft's ill fated YouTube app could I then sideload it?
Sent from my SGH-T899M using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

[Q] Password protect certain applications?

Is there an application that can password protect certain apps that I choose?
And please do not say Kids Corner as it does not do what I am asking.

It's probably possible (though far from easy), but I'd actually be more inclined to help if you hadn't opened a duplicate thread about this.

Only made second thread about this to attract some attention, 7 months passed since that guy opened his thread and nobody could give a good answer.
To me it's weird that nobody tried to make an app like this still, it would be very popular and help users very much.
Anyways, thank you for replying.

Really, just bumping the other thread was enough, but since we're here anyhow... my idea for how to approach it (and this would take a *lot* of hacking) goes something like this:
1. Create an app (call it X) that has the capability to launch other apps, and filesystem write access.
2. Have X take another app (call it Y) and encrypt its binaries. This prevents anybody from launching it by any means.
3. Tweak the app database to make it so that when you try to launch Y, it instead launches X and passes the id of Y as a parameter to the launcher.
4. X prompts the user for a password to Y. On getting the right one, it decrypts Y's binaries and writes them back to the correct location, then launches Y.
5. When the user (or OS) closes Y, a background process of X notes that Y is closed and re-encrypts it.
Currently we know how to do... well, some of #1, and we think the rest is possible. Given that, #2 isn't too hard. #3 is something I don't have the least notion how to do *right now* but I'm sure it's possible. #4 shouldn't be too hard given #1 and #2. #5 will be a trick - currently, apps have no way to know what other apps are running - but I'm sure it can be done.
It's a large engineering problem blocked by an even bigger research and hacking problem, though. Nothing we'll have soon. You'd never be able to publish it in the store, either, and it would only work for people with hacked phones. It's exactly the kind of *useful* thing that would be possible if Microsoft were willing to let up the restrictions on third-party developers a bit, of course, But for the time being, there are *reasons* nobody has done it yet.

Well the word that I actually was thinking after reading your post was "crap".
It seems only with time (and a whole [email protected]#$ing lot of it) will wp become a true competitor to android, but to be honest I don't think it will come to that.
Thanks for replying GoodDayToDie, I'm freakin' sad that there is no app that can suit my needs, I even tried with kids corner but the screen still needs the password entered like the normal one. Nothing really can make up for what I have in mind.
Cheers mate.

as soon as we can interop unlock all WP devices, it will be pretty easy... if you're able to provide the XAP (uncrypted of course )
i'll be able to "mod" this in for you... which app are we talking about?
@GoodDayToDie: i do'nt think he is looking for real data security here, so encrypting the whole thing shouldnt be required... i think it's more about preventing his gf to read his private messages or something like that
oh btw.: you would need a dev-unlock to deploy the modified XAP then...

tfBullet said:
as soon as we can interop unlock all WP devices, it will be pretty easy... if you're able to provide the XAP (uncrypted of course )
i'll be able to "mod" this in for you... which app are we talking about?
@GoodDayToDie: i do'nt think he is looking for real data security here, so encrypting the whole thing shouldnt be required... i think it's more about preventing his gf to read his private messages or something like that
oh btw.: you would need a dev-unlock to deploy the modified XAP then...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're right tfBullet! I need it for whatsapp, photos, message and games app, mostly to prevent from friends but gf too.
I was thinking it might be possible to mod an app and add password before it can be accessed, although I have no experience in this domain. Many apps in store have this function, like wallet or prive photo apps.
My phone is dev-unlocked as I started a few days ago to study and try to create a simple app for me and my friends.

Modding an app like that would actually be quite hard, because it would break the signature and prevent the app from running. The encryption thing really isn't too hard, although you could skip it anyhow too.

If there was a way to run a program in the background that monitors when certain apps are selected and then prompts when its activated would work, but it would need an unlocked phone. And even under home brew I don't know if its possible to run apps in the background. Yet.
Sent from my Nokia 521 using XDA Windows Phone 8 App

The encryption thing really isn't too hard

Yea, but that's a little extreme. If you can create that password program that runs in the background you could probably have it watch files, apps or pretty much anything. You'd have to password protect the cofig file. And maybe if you can't remember the password after so many attempts you can have the program email the passwords to your email. Just some ideas.
Sent from my Nokia 521 using XDA Windows Phone 8 App

Running software in the background is actually shockingly easy. The trick is getting it to run with better-than-app-sandbox privileges. We're still working on that one. In the meantime, apps can't even read, much less write, to the install location of other apps.

GoodDayToDie said:
Modding an app like that would actually be quite hard, because it would break the signature and prevent the app from running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@GoodDayToDie: actually these .NET apps are pretty easy to decompile, if you're willing to fix the bugs that the decompiler leaves you with...
so there is not really a need for a valid signature, if you're able to compile & sideload the app yourself
the only thing is: you need the decrypted XAP, as far as i know these get decrypted while installation and can be pulled from a interop unlocked device?!
It would be nice to get my fingers on some OEM (Nokia etc..) XAPs, to see if we can find any exploit in them

I know better than probably 95% of this forum what it takes to decompile managed code; I have reverse engineered huge numbers of apps. However, you are missing several important points.
1) Modifications like you suggest are very complicated to automate. It's certainly possible, but it's not simple.
2) Re-installing the app would be a pain. You would really want to do this as an in-place modification, and that means (for store apps) that it would still be signature-checked.
3) Not all apps are managed code; WP8 supports purely native code.
4) Even with managed code, obfuscation can make tinkering with the binary nigh-impossible.

It's just so incredibly stupid that WP is so limited. I know it's under Android big time, but I think even iOS more customizable, right?
Also, is there a message app in the store that has pass option? I searched but found nothing...

I don't believe iOS is any more customizable, no. It has some feature that WP lacks (it ought to; it's been out for years longer and Apple completely controls the hardware it runs on) but it's also missing some features that WP8 offers. In any case, this isn't the thread to have that discussion in.

GoodDayToDie said:
I don't believe iOS is any more customizable, no. It has some feature that WP lacks (it ought to; it's been out for years longer and Apple completely controls the hardware it runs on) but it's also missing some features that WP8 offers. In any case, this isn't the thread to have that discussion in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But with the jailbreak and MobileSubstrate, iOS is extremely customizable, and there are tons of tweaks, that's where Apple gets its new features from
Back to topic, I think the OP would be happy with a solution that locks the "normal" user of his phone out of some apps, so it wouldn't be necessary to modify anything of it, just making the standard launcher (I don't know how it's called, but I mean when you launch the app via home screen or with a toast) ask for a password should be enough.

[Q] Jailbreaking Lumia 520 ?

Hi all.
I'm an android user switching to windows phone..
I'm getting the Lumia 520 soon ..
I just wanted to get a general idea of how jailbreaking works with windows phone..
is it like android just download the apk (or whatever extension windows phone uses) to the sd card .. install it and voila ?
or is it complicated ?
any guides/tutorials for this ?
Thanks.

Please use search before posting...
You can enable sideloading on WP8, but it's more complex than on Android; you need to use a PC to enable it and to install the sideloaded apps.
More importantly, though, sideloaded apps are very limited. For one thing, you can't install more than a few of them - the typical range is 2-10, depending on what unlock method you use - unless you uninstall some first. They are also restricted to very low permissions. There is no widely-usable "root" hack for any WP8 phone right now, either. I'm working on it... but the Samsung phones will probably be the first ones.
Despite Windows' long reputation for poor security, Microsoft has put serious effort into WP8 security and lockdown (not the same thing... security keeps others from controlling your device, lockdown keeps you from controlling it) and the result is pretty solid. There's a few holes we've been able to attack thus far, but most of them have had such minimal privileges we couldn't use them to *do* anything meaningful.

[Q] Is there a way to pull a XAP file off WP8?

Hello - I am doing a pen test for a customer. They are not giving me the xap files like they did last time. Is there a way to pull the xap file off the phone and on to your PC? I have a dev unlocked phone which I can sideload apps using power tools. I have done some research and it doesn't sound like this option is available, but I wanted to ask.
Thanks in advance.

First of all, the phone doesn't store the XAP files (PLEASE search before posting! This question gets asked a lot). I assume all you really care about is the app binaries and manifest file, though. (You can rebuild an installable XAP from these if needed.)
There's a complicated series of hacks for doing it on 8.1 via the ability to install apps to the SD card. If you don't have 8.1, don't have an SD card, can't install the relevant versions of specific apps, or if the app is marked to not allow installation to SD, then that method won't work for you.
The other approach, which in my experience is standard in the pentesting world (which is my field as well), is to use a hacked/jailbroken/unlocked phone. Samsung (unless it has the very newest firmware versions) and Huawei phones can be unlocked by flashing modified ROMs. The unlock lets you sideload apps with vastly more privileges, such as the ability to read and write the install directory of any app. Using that, it's pretty easy to get the files you want. Such unlocks are also possible with some Nokia phones via JTAG, and possibly some other models too, but the Samsung unlock (which I and -W_O_L_F- found) and the ability to flash customized ROMs for Huawei are the easiest approaches.
On the offhand chance you're part of NCC group, PM me and I'll send you my work email address. If you're with one of our competitors... well, I actually don't mind helping a competitor that much either; some Deja Vu folks gave me a good tip lately though, and I've got friends at SI as well.

GoodDayToDie said:
First of all, the phone doesn't store the XAP files (PLEASE search before posting! This question gets asked a lot). I assume all you really care about is the app binaries and manifest file, though. (You can rebuild an installable XAP from these if needed.)
There's a complicated series of hacks for doing it on 8.1 via the ability to install apps to the SD card. If you don't have 8.1, don't have an SD card, can't install the relevant versions of specific apps, or if the app is marked to not allow installation to SD, then that method won't work for you.
The other approach, which in my experience is standard in the pentesting world (which is my field as well), is to use a hacked/jailbroken/unlocked phone. Samsung (unless it has the very newest firmware versions) and Huawei phones can be unlocked by flashing modified ROMs. The unlock lets you sideload apps with vastly more privileges, such as the ability to read and write the install directory of any app. Using that, it's pretty easy to get the files you want. Such unlocks are also possible with some Nokia phones via JTAG, and possibly some other models too, but the Samsung unlock (which I and -W_O_L_F- found) and the ability to flash customized ROMs for Huawei are the easiest approaches.
On the offhand chance you're part of NCC group, PM me and I'll send you my work email address. If you're with one of our competitors... well, I actually don't mind helping a competitor that much either; some Deja Vu folks gave me a good tip lately though, and I've got friends at SI as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again for all your help. So my situation is this: I am doing pen testing for a client (and I'm sure we are competitors some what). The have provided me a Nokia Lumia phone running 8.0 and another Lumia running 8.1. The app is installed by their dev team (app is not avail from the store). They are reluctant to provide my the XAP file as they consider it proprietary info. I have done a dev unlock on the phone, but my primary goal is to view the isolated storage/dlls for the app to make sure they are not storing sensitive data. I am using the standard tools for viewing the isolated storage, but for these to work (best of my knowledge) they require you to sideload the application which I cannot due (not XAP file). I am proxying the traffic, but without looking at the file system there is not much I can do. As an aside, they are using MDM with jailbreak detection.

Whoa, somebody actually got around to writing jailbreak detection for WP8? Crazy. I wish I could see that; I'm sure it's trivial to bypass (at least for interop-unlock, the difference between locked and unlocked is changing a registry value and it would be easily possible to re-lock it, launch the app while keeping the editor app open in the background, switch back to the editor, and unlock/jailbreak again) but I'm amused that anybody even bothered trying. Also, the APIs you would need to do the detection aren't even available on 8.0, officially; you're in violation of the store rules if you use them. Then again, maybe this is an internal, "Enterprise" app; those have permissions to do stuff that typical third-party apps do not. Are you sure they don't just mean they have jailbreak detection for iOS? I see something about Office365 MDM offering JB detection, but while I suppose they could have written something for WP8.x as well I feel like I probably would have heard of it?
If the app was sideloaded by the dev team, then you can see its isostore using the official tools or using Windows Phone Power Tools. If it's an enterprise app and the app was installed that way, then things get more difficult (especially if the phone they gave you doesn't have an SD slot). Not giving a pentester access to the binary they're testing is silly on a number of levels; if you succeed in breaking in then you'll get it anyhow, and an attacker will have a lot more than a week or two to poke at it so they're wasting your presumably-paid-by-the-hour time if they want you to see how good their security is without actually examining the app. I bet they used obfuscation, too... Some people just don't get it. "Security" by obscurity... isn't. Sorry, end of mini-rant. Anyhow, there's a guy on the forum who claims to have a non-JTAG unlock for Lumias, but no idea when or if it'll see the light of day.

Help to interop Lumia 640 LTE AT&T

I cannot get this phone to interop no matter what tutorial guide I used unfortunately The phone is now back to stock at windows 8.1 update 2. Everytime I tried to apply the bootstrap.xap no matter if it's to extra e and info or the stock mixradio, customwpsystem just exits and nothing happens. I tried googling if anyone else have these issue, and saw that it happens to a couple of people but no true solution so I had to start a thread to seek help. Thanks everyone!

As someone who's tried just about everything without success, I can tell you that even if you get it to work, something else with go wrong eventually. I've jailbroken my iPhones, rooted my Galaxy Phones, installed Cyanogenmod on my tablets, etc. interop unlocking has pretty much been a losing battle for me. I have a Lumia 1520 & 640 and they're so limited in terms of customization compare to android, apps are missing features, can't play flash videos, etc. interop unlocking was the only hope I had in Windows Phone. The only thing my Lumias have going for them now is that the OS is very smooth. I think I'm going to take the cowards way out and go back to Android until some of these hacks have become more polished.

Thanks merazomo for the reply. So currently, nothing will work for the 640? Do we have to wait for the full blown windows 10 in order for devs to start back hacking this phone?

I've installed the Windows 10 Preview version on an old 521, but I've experienced quite a few bugs still to feel comfortable upgrading my 640; it's normal since Official Windows 10 mobile still hasn't been released for the 640. On most of the forums you'll see here related to Windows Phone hacks and unlocking, etc. you'll notice that the last comments/questions on the last page is always someone like us, asking why this or that doesn't work. Windows phone is a very secure system, for better or for worse. For me, it still comes down to Windows Phone apps though. Most official apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. are always crap and I have to rely on alternative ones, which oftentimes are better than the original, but are missing features. The question we have to ask ourselves is if it's worth waiting to unlock these phones when Android is light-years ahead in that department.

I have same trouble later, but today I did it.
Follow the original guide manual way with some corrections.
1. Make 1-2 steps.
2. On 3 step install Microsoft files and WP explorer from store.
3. Make 4-6 steps.
4. Make 7-12 steps with Microsoft files
5. Before make 13 step open WP explorer and add folder -> SD card.
6. Make 13, 14 steps on the WP explorer.
7. Make 15, 16 steps.

Hi All
I just unlocked a lumia 640 att go phone.
I'm planning on upgrading to W10M.
Then interop unlock
What guide do you recommend for interop unlock?
Will upgrading remove the ATT branding?

hi
can you pls. let me know what guide you used
thx!