Metro Unlocker
 | |
 Metro Unlocker running on Windows 8 build 8056 | |
| Developer(s) | MetroFetro |
|---|---|
| Operating system | Windows 8 builds 7927 to 8056 |
| Latest release version | 4.0 |
| Latest release date | 2019-08-05 |
Metro Unlocker (also known as MetroUnlocker, or simply MU) is a tool developed by MetroFetro, a YouTuber and developer. It was the first public application that allowed for all features restricted by the Redpill feature locking mechanism to be enabled, including the Start screen and Immersive applications, and remained the only application capable of performing such a task from its initial release in 2016 until the release of Redlock in 2020.
History[edit | edit source]
The first version, released on 3 January 2016, only supported build 8056, and worked by disabling the Software Protection Service, the Windows service responsible for Windows licensing, and importing the respective licensing policies from build 8102.101, which included the required policies used to enable Redpill, and also dropped a modified version of its shsxs.dll binary. In subsequent versions (from version 2 onward), the binaries and registry entries for build 8102.101's Immersive Browser were also dropped into the existing Windows installation.
Version 3, released on 10 May 2019, used the Immersive Browser files from build 8056, along with implementing support for builds 8032 and 7989. The latest version, version 4, (released on 5 August 2019) dynamically writes in the RP policies instead of overwriting all policies with the ones from 8102, and also introduced a licensing subsystem hack against the slc.dll library to forcibly enable the Immersive Control Panel's Personalization subpage in build 8056. Support for builds 7927 (fbl_srv_wdacxml) through 8056 were also added in version 4.
Criticism[edit | edit source]
The tool faced criticism due to its crude implementation, namely the continuous reuse of resources included as part of the official Developer Preview release and build 8056, instead of working with files already provided by the currently running build, which yielded highly inaccurate representations of the Windows 8 user interface during development and also presented significant performance and stability problems on older builds.
Use of the Metro Unlocker tool is highly discouraged and no longer recommended for general use, and the Redlock tool should instead be employed as it supports all Windows 8 builds from builds 7779 through 8123 while replicating Microsoft's Redpill implementation as closely as possible.