Microsoft warns against ‘tinkering’ with Windows Phone 7 update

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The much-delayed Windows Phone 7 update still hasn’t reached all customers, but Microsoft is asking users to sit tight and warning against workarounds.

The copy and paste update was delayed following troubles with a mini software upgrade in February, leading to a number of handsets crashing or wiping data.

Microsoft claimed it wanted to “learn all it could” from the mistakes made with the smaller update, before rolling out the more significant one – despite it being ready and waiting from early March.

The update - which was unveiled by Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer at Mobile World Congress in February - started going out to users at the end of last month but many are still waiting, leading them to try “homebrew solutions” to get the software on board their devices.

“As an engineer and a gadget lover, I totally understand the impulse to tinker,” said Eric Hautala, general manager of customer experience engineering for Windows Phone 7, in a blog post. “You want the latest technology and you’re tired of waiting. Believe me, I get it.”

He added: “But my strong advice is: wait. If you attempt one of these workarounds, we can’t say for sure what might happen to your phone because we haven’t fully tested these homebrew techniques.”

Hautala listed a number of things that could go wrong, such as the phone becoming misconfigured, not working properly or not receiving future updates. However, his “bottom line” was workarounds would lead to a voiding of the handset's warranty.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in recent weeks, so I urge you to please be patient for just a bit longer and wait for your official update notification to arrive,” he concluded.

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