According to Chris Walsh, the dude who released the hack way to update your WP7 phone that the carriers had been ignoring, that hack can possibly prevent your phone from being updated in the future.
Apparently, he used an “Undocumented API” to force the updates to the phones. I am unsure if that means he found a hole in the system or that Microsoft, the source of this revelation, is truly worried about this preventing future updates. While they’ve been fairly open to dealing with homebrew developers, it seems that they prefer to have them on the payroll.
Microsoft has also released a statement on the Windows Phone Blog about the dangers of using homebrew update tactics. One of their listed concerns is device specific software, as well as voided warranties. So don’t use that tool, even if it worked great for me.
Chris has noted that he will post an update regarding what users of the app should do moving forward, but it should be noted that he is headed to MIX11, an event that is heavily promoted by Microsoft (and even features a WP7 boot camp) so it’s possible that Microsoft is going to try and woo him there. Then again, he’s fairly proficient in quite a few MS based programming languages, so maybe it’s all gravy.
Sources: Chris Walsh, Windows Phone Blog
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