[HD2 Windows Phone 7 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting an] onslaught86:
I had a good, long think about this before deciding to activate my HD2. When I did so, I created a brand new Live email address, and gave the rep I spoke with that one, intending to use my regular Live account should that work fine. Funnily enough, she misspelled the email address I gave her, so the codes are fairly conclusively proven not to be generated based on any personal details whatsoever. They're just 'generated' and added to MS's database of valid WP7 activation codes, which authenticate when the device connects to the Live servers for the first time. I'd be surprised if there's even a link between specific Live addresses and specific codes used, beyond 'This code has been used [x] times', which is more for Live account security than individual device security. After all, the legit WP7 devices are already available second-hand.

I do not believe there is (currently) any way for MS to identify whether someone is using an HD2 or an HD7 if the registry has been modified to spoof an HD7.

Now, for the paranoid among us:

- Most carriers simply will not care whether MS wants to know what their customers are doing or not. MS wanting info from the carriers means the carriers have to actually do some work, which all businesses are fundamentally against doing if they don't have to and there's no profit involved - telecommunications providers especially.

- Identifying what device you have means the carrier has to A. Go to the trouble of finding which IMEI is connected to their service, B. Have a list of IMEIs so they know which device is which, and C. Have some very clear legal grounds from Microsoft to disclose that information, as it is otherwise a very severe breach of privacy to pass customer details to another unrelated business on the extreme offchance that the customer is, gasp, using a pirated copy of Windows Phone 7, currently only usable on one other device, which is already a 'Windows Phone'.

- I work for a telecommunications provider, and we'd be hard pressed to ID any IMEI. Of course, we're tiny and in a tiny country, not to mention an MVNO, but we do sell the Trophy, so there's that.

- Cost is the overriding factor. It costs to have the carrier chase anything up, it costs for MS to chase anything up, it costs for MS to get legal grounds to obtain info, it costs for MS to get its employees to do any work tracking down who is using an HD2 and who is using an HD7, and the benefit to the company is good word of mouth & revenue from Marketplace sales.

- If MS do anything about it at all, it'll be through updates. When we get WP7 updates, I doubt highly that they will not work on the HD2 as provided due to the assorted driver tweaking and button mapping and other work that DFT & testers performed to get it up and running. Tracking down each individual device as it is now would be a ridiculous amount of trouble for very little gain. Updates, on the other hand, would easily distinguish between who's using what phone until DFT et al modify the update for use on HD2s. That'd be a good way of distinguishing between who's using a legit WP7 device, and who's not. But, again, it'd cost in development, auditing, and deployment time - and I do believe MS will be appreciating the good things we as a userbase will bring to their budding brand.

The only situation I can think of where this directly hurts revenue is in sales of the HD7 itself, from T-Mobile US only - and maybe from any other carriers worldwide who have sold both the HD2 and the HD7, and there's not that many of those. Not to mention that the majority customers who were planning to get the HD7 probably already have it, or aren't tech-savvy enough to flash WP7 anyway. Oh Noes, MS has lost some $15US licensing fees from HTC. Whatever will they do when they make more than that from Zune/Marketplace purchases that they wouldn't have gotten had WP7 not been ported to the HD2? It's not like every HD2 flashed to WP7 instantly equals a lost HD7 sale, here, and it's not like MS are making the money on the hardware - if anything, it'll be HTC that's a bit irked by the porting.

I'm confident enough in my assumptions to have activated my HD2 with my main Xbox Live & Windows Live account, and I must say, it's well worth it. Maybe there will be hurdles in the future, maybe there won't - but at the end of the day, I believe the benefits outweigh the potential losses, both for myself and for Microsoft.

That, and I've promised my girlfriend I'll buy her a new 360 if hers is banned from Live.

JMHO, YMMV, ETC.

:)