Microsoft gives most Lumia smartphones access to Windows 10 preview

Microsoft plans to give more smartphones access to the preview of Windows 10. With the next update, most Lumia smartphones will have the option to install the new operating system. Non-Lumias are still not supported.

The company made the announcement in a blog post on its website. It claims to have recently tested many individual smartphones for compatibility with the preview version of Windows 10. This has resulted in a long list of Lumia smartphones that will receive access to the software with the next update. A notable absentee from that list is the Lumia 930.

According to Microsoft, the necessary update should be released sometime in the near future. Among other things, the new version includes something called partition stitching: dynamically resizing partitions on storage memory. This feature was necessary because most smartphones by default do not have enough space on the partition where the operating system is located. This was also the reason that the Windows 10 preview is only available for a small number of Lumias. Despite this, a developer managed to get around that restriction.

The list that Microsoft has put on its website is still a preliminary one. If bugs are found during the testing process, it may be that a device is deleted and therefore cannot access the Windows 10 preview for the time being. Conversely, it may also be the case that Microsoft will fix bugs in the near future and thereby add devices to the list.

The first version of Windows 10 for smartphones was released on February 12. Before that, Microsoft already released a number of preview versions for the desktop version of its new operating system. Windows 10 should be released sometime in the fall.