Microsoft Cripples Legacy Windows Phone 7.5 And 8.0 Devices By Killing Push Notifications
Microsoft announced that starting tomorrow, February 20th, smartphone users running Windows Phone 7.5 or Windows Phone 8.0 will no longer have access to push notifications. According to the company, the following features will no longer function:
- Your phone will no longer receive notifications.
- Your phone will not receive additional live tile updates.
- The “Find my phone” feature will no longer locate your phone.
The folks in Redmond go on explain that, "Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8.0 have reached their end of support dates, and thus services for these versions of Windows will be discontinued over time."
Windows Phone 7.5 was first released in 2011, while Windows Phone 8.0 was released on October 29th, 2012. Windows Phone 8.1 was released in mid-2014.
Microsoft officially stopped supporting Windows Phone 8.1 back in July 2017, so it's only a matter of time before that operating system joins its predecessors in losing support for push notifications and other cloud services. For those still running the initial release of Windows 10 Mobile (version 1511), you're on notice as well. Microsoft cautions that you should upgrade to a newer release, or you too could see feature terminations.
