[HD2 Windows Phone 7 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting an] benjaminries:
My point is that predictions about our supposed inability to get the NoDo update directly from Microsoft rest on two premises that would BOTH have to be true:

1. At present, it is technically possible for Microsoft to digitally detect the difference between an HD7 and a hacked HD2.

2. Microsoft cares enough about stopping the HD2 from getting the update that they would take measures to block it.

So far, there is little evidence for premise #1, with the exception of IMEI. But IMEI checking seems impractical - maintaining an IMEI database of every single WP7 device sold, past present and future is not even something that Microsoft does with Windows PCs, for which piracy is evidently their far greater concern.

Nor is there any evidence for premise #2. Microsoft's official comments about the HD2 running WP7 are more or less "we don't support it". I suspect that on new purchases of the HD2 and HD7, Microsoft makes about the same money in licensing fees.

The strongest relevant evidence we DO have is the following:

1. Two months after launch, DFT was able to get the HD7 rom running on HD2 with fewer bugs than, for example, the Dell Venue Pro (a native WP7 device).

2. For a couple of weeks, Microsoft has known that HD2 users are calling in from around the world to get activation codes for the HD7. Some of those users are providing the actual IMEI numbers from their HD2 devices. Some users are even TELLING Microsoft that they are using an HD2. Microsoft has done nothing to stop this - instead they've been helpful and cooperative in every known case.

3. The Marketplace and other Live services continue to work using the above method, with no apparent attempts to change how the device is detected by Microsoft servers.

4. The OS update architecture purposefully avoids touching the bootloader, baseband ROM, drivers, or anything device-specific.

Your theory about button detection over the web is thus quite far-fetched. The way that WP7 can treat all "camera" button presses the same, across multiple devices from different manufacturers, is that the manufacturer supplies a driver that translates some low-level interrupt code into standardized hardware events in the OS. In this case, I suspect DFT has gone one step further and used either MAGLDR or some preload layer to translate the HD2 button press codes so that HD7 drivers will "recognize" them as the mapped buttons.

So the only way your theory could manifest would be if during the NoDo update sequence, every WP7 user received a message saying "please half-press the camera button to proceed". Pigs, as well as 10 year olds, might then sprout wings and fly.

People on this thread and others saying they're "pretty sure" the update won't work, or that the update would "brick" our devices, aren't actually weighing the available evidence to make rational predictions. Rather they are being pessimistic at best, or paranoid at worst.

Let me predict unequivocally that there is 0% risk that NoDo will "brick" the HD2. Thought experiment: can you remove your battery and put it back in? Can you press the power button while holding down the Volume Down button? You're back at HSPL - flash away. NoDo won't even touch MAGLDR, let alone HSPL.