Using Your New WP7 Phone As A Mass Storage Device

[Brad Wasson]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.tomsguide.com/us/USB-Mode-Windows-Phone-7-Windows-Registry-Zune,news-8930.html' target='_blank'>http://www.tomsguide.com/us/USB-Mod...,news-8930.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"MobileTechWorld has discovered that Windows Phone 7 can be used as a mass storage device. According to the site, there's no "hacking" involved, as the feature is native to Windows Phone 7 but turned off by default. Users simply need to alter the Windows registry on the PC to re-activate USB drive mode support."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/wpt/auto/1291082720.usr110171.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>I'm certainly not suggesting that you run out and do this, as there are potential issues with taking advantage of this option, but should you desire to use your new Windows Phone 7 device for mass storage, then Tom's Guide has reported that MobileTechWorld has the exact steps to follow to make it happen. Those brave enough to try this report success, although there are limitations (such as file recognition issues) that may curtail the overall usefulness of the hack. Click through to find out more.</p>

[Sven Johannsen]

Great news, because all the current Windows Phone 7 models have soooo much extraneous storage.

Quick read seems to imply this gets you the ability to drag and drop media files via the explorer interface. Whoop-te-doo. Zune actually does a decent job of managing media IMHO. Might take a little to get it the way you want, but with auto-playlists, Zune will manage it for you, wirelessly even.

If this were to provide a way to load office files, word, excel, etc on the device, then YEA!, but alas, doesn't appear to be. The best you could do is maybe copy a file to the device to take somewhere and copy back off. Yippee, I have more storage on a dongle on my key chain, and I don't have to 'hack' the registry and supply a cable.

[j2inet]

When I look at this hack I just get the feeling it's just allowing the phone to be displayed as any other MTP device. When the Zune was released there was a similar hack for it (may even be the same hack, I've not checked). If I can dig up my old Creative Zen I plan to connect it to my computer to see if I can find any difference in behaviour. The only difference I expect to find is that MTP devices such as the Zen displayed their media share by default, while the Zune devices do not.

[Tracester]

Awesome news. I'm thinking about getting a WP7 phone and this was one of the things that i needed to find out. I just want to be able to plug the phone into my car's USB and read MP3s.