Microsoft To Windows Phone 7 Users: We Told You Not To Use Workaround

rolling out a new Windows Phone 7 update

Customers have been stewing over carriers' slowness in rolling out Microsoft's 'NoDo' Windows Phone 7 update, which adds copy-and-paste and a host of other performance-related tweaks. Last month, developer Chris Walsh took matters into his own hands and released a non-Microsoft sanctioned utility that allows customers to apply not just the NoDo update, but also a preliminary Windows Phone 7 update Microsoft released in February.

Microsoft earlier this week began distributing the '7392' Windows Phone 7 update, which is aimed at fixing nine fraudulent third-party digital certificates and doesn't include new features. But while many customers who used Walsh's utility to download the NoDo update (also known as 7390) haven't had problems with that update, Watson said they'll encounter issues when they try to download the new one.

"With Windows Phone update build 7392 going out to phones via the official update mechanism, those people who have used the unsupported method of forcing 7390 onto their phones will find that their phones will not update to 7392," Watson said in a Wednesday blog post.

Watson explained that the Windows Phone 7 update process only allows new updates to be applied to devices that have a previous official update. Walsh's workaround doesn't fit this description, and so phones with his update won't be able to move past the 7390 build, Watson said.

And because Microsoft is busy with engineering the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 update, code named Mango, which will add full multitasking capability, it doesn't have time to address the matter. "While we are not ruling out having a fix in the future, for now there is no fix," Watson said in the blog post.

Watson said Windows Phone 7 customers who find themselves unable to install the 7392 update should get in touch with their carrier to discuss their options. "The mobile operator store locations are not capable of flashing phones on-site with an original OS image, which means that you will most likely have to return to a store and submit your phone for a manufacturing return," Watson said in the blog post.

Microsoft has been criticized for not taking a harder line on the update issue with Windows Phone 7 carriers, and it's still ironing out issues with the NoDo update on the Samsung Omnia7, but this isn't a case where fingers can fairly be pointed at Microsoft.

Sure, one could argue that customers wouldn't have had to use the workaround if the NoDo update had been made available sooner, but if this scenario played out in the Apple customer base there would likely be thousands of hapless customers left holding bricked phones, with no recourse.

Microsoft isn't aggressively wielding the hammer of its Windows Phone 7 terms of service in this case -- Watson's tone, while frank, was also sympathetic to the plight of affected customers. Watson even suggested, without naming Walsh, that a third party fix for the issue could be forthcoming.

Walsh, on his blog, is asking affected customers for feedback and suggesting that "the fix is quite simple really".