Introduced with Windows Phone 8 back in 2012, Rooms was a Windows Phone-only sharing feature that, in an iOS and Android dominated world not surprisingly failed to really take off. Even with a WP enthusiast such as yourself, the chances are that others in the family have gone elsewhere for their mobile action. And now, as part of the move to Windows 10, Rooms is being gracefully retired, see the quote from Microsoft below.

Here's part of the FAQ on Microsoft's site:

What will happen to my rooms?

If you're using Windows Phone 8 or 8.1 – You'll still see your existing rooms and be able to view and use your room photo albums, calendars, and notes on your phone. But, you won't be able to create new rooms or make membership or permissions changes to existing rooms. You'll still see your old room chats, but you and the other room members won't be able to send or receive any new room chat messages.

If you update to Windows 10 – Rooms will no longer show up on your phone. You'll be able to get to your photo albums, calendars, and notes in a couple of different ways—either on the web or through other apps on your phone.

When you update to Windows 10, your chat history will be removed, and you won't be able to get to it on your phone or on the web. Before updating your phone, make a copy of any information in your chat history you want to keep.

After I update to Windows 10, where can I find my room calendars, photos, and notes?

On your phone:

• Open the Calendar app to see all the calendar events from your rooms on your phone.
• To see your photos and videos, open the OneDrive app. You'll find your photos and videos in a folder with the same name as your room.
• To see your room notes, open the OneNote app. You'll find your notes in a notebook with the same name as your room.

Notably, room chats will be lost completely, so best to copy and paste out anything that's of particular interest.

The failure of the Rooms feature wasn't unexpected - it was a nice idea, but relied too heavily on everyone you want to share with having a Windows Phone and being prepared to opt in to the system. Instead, families tend to share via Bluetooth, email, social media and other mechanisms. None as potentially elegant as Rooms, but all being platform agnostic so it doesn't all fall apart when your wife decides she wants an iPhone....

Did you ever use it? Comments welcome.