I was very interested to read Paul Thurrott’s post today regarding Windows Phone 7 and flash memory cards.  I wanted to share the highlights with you as this will likely be of great interest to those looking forward to grabbing one of the first Windows Phones released next month.

In the post, Mr. Thurrott confirms that Windows Phone 7 will – despite some previous indications to the contrary – support memory cards microSD and microSDHC). But that support is somewhat unusual in its implementation. Rather than being adjunct storage – i.e. something you can use,remove and/or upgrade on a whim like an external hard drive on a PC or an Android phone’s memory card – Windows Phone 7 will add the space on a microSD card to primary device storage.  Put another way, the OS will see the additional storage no differently than the internal storage, so files will be stored in internal memory and/or card memory as needed.  Removing the card, therefore, would result in missing files, likely causing system malfunctions (missing apps, app data, music, etc.).  To remove or replace the card, you’ll have to perform a hard reset, restoring the device to factory specs.

To make things even more interesting, the microSD cards – according to the post – won’t even be readable on a PC if you were to remove it and try to access the information stored there via a card reader.  This suggests either encryption or a non-standard file system.

I can’t imagine why such a setup would be desirable, but Mr. Thurrott says details will be forthcoming.  I can imagine that this will cause problems, particularly when users want to expand storage after a few months’ use and are met with system errors only a hard reset can correct.  Perhaps there’ll be some backup and restore solution via the Zune PC software which would allow for painless memory card upgrades?

Apparently, Microsoft has also mandated that hardware manufacturers that do opt for memory card slots must position them under the battery, presumably to curb the notion of the cards being hot-swapable.

M. Nichols, Products Editor