back to article Stop! Before you accept that Windows 10 Mobile upgrade, read this

Windows 10 updates have begun rolling out to eligible Windows Phone 8.1 devices. Microsoft has promised not to be as aggressive as it has been with pushing Windows 10 onto desktops – a promise that’s surely not hard to keep. It’s made good progress fixing the bugs, cranking up the performance, and making the UX transition …

  1. Bob Vistakin
    Unhappy

    So many post mortems

    So little time.

  2. Tubz Silver badge

    So in short and English, W10M is a half arsed, unfinished, bug ridden, featureless, epic failure and to keep away from it unless hell freezes over Nadella scraps it and buys Blackberry ! Microsoft planned take over of the mobile world is a bloody disaster and the fault lies squarely with Balmer and Nadella !

    1. Grade%

      "Nadella scraps it and buys Blackberry"

      Lol. Hey...that's not a half bad idea. BB may be inclined to sell BB10 for the right price. It already has the number 10 in it.

      Oh wait. BB10 doesn't sniff out and sell everything out from under you. BB10 is secure. Lol, my bad.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "BB10 is secure"

        Not.compared to Windows Mobile it isn't. There have been over 80 security vulnerabilities in BB10.

      2. 0laf

        That boat has sailed. They should have bought BB and folded it into Win-mobile years ago.

        WinPho 8.1 was (is?) a very good product but it's suffered death by a thousand cuts and neglect from it's parent.

        Could have been great but MS hates it's own products

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Tubz Lets add to this...

      @Tubz Lets add to this:

      This release of Windows 10 Mobile is a 'compatibility' interim release in the style of Windows Phone 7.8. Windows 10 Mobile 'Redstone' (next release) due in the summer (or later now) will aggresively dump the Windows Phone 8.1 App (Silverlight) backwards compatibility. That's my take.

      Redstone has already been nicknamed/coined the 'Tombstone' release. Microsoft are already been aggressive in their attempts to railroad (Desktop) Windows 7, its seems they intend to aggressively do the same with Silverlight/Windows 8.1 App backwards compatibility support.

      It looks like, the now MS owned Xamarin and iOS App porting support will be the new Coding approach, but in effect its another 'Stepping Stone' / Developer re-tooling Mobile OS as it looks like the Summer 'Redstone' release dumps Windows 8.1 App backwards compatibilty.

      (That's what Here Maps seem to be saying, by dropping support for Here Maps from the Windows Mobile App store on 29th March)

      In a way it seems to make sense, Windows 8.1 phones with 512MB won't get this upgrade and thats probably the largest user base overall. The userbase is currently so small now, that to 'do a reset' in the summer, remove the clutter/backwards silverlight compatibilty is probably no real hardship.

      I think we'll get the definitive answer at Build 2016.

      Also worth mentioning the History;

      Joe Belfiore tweeted and confirmed, (when asked the question) that Microsoft was working on bringing Windows 10 mobile to 512MB devices including the Lumia 520.

      As said, they won't. We heard nothing different until today. Another Marketing fcuk up.

    3. keithpeter Silver badge
      Windows

      Migration time...

      "Enterprise features, including Data Protection Under Lock, are missing."

      I take it that a large company that actually uses Windows 8.1 phones and that actually relies on this feature for data management can block the update while they investigate migrating to an alternative platform?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I've disabled

    updates on my phone. Its 8.1 and it works perfectly well IMHO.

    I see no point in risking my UX and privacy only to become a MS bitch.

    I'm an ardent win user, always have been. Seems that relationship is coming to an end.

    Even Windows 8.1 (with classic shell) looks a more appealing proposition than 10 ever will.

    Oh did I mention I hate Windows 8 too...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I've disabled

      Funny how us Android users are begging for updates, though

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I've disabled

        So I guess you don't care about security then? Or are you under some delusion that despite their terrible record for Windows security, Microsoft has done a far better job than Apple and Google have with mobile security?

        1. Pookietoo

          Re: Microsoft has done a far better job

          They have if you look at it in terms of motivation to hack their product - with so little market share it's hardly worth anyone's time to try picking holes in it.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I've disabled

          "Microsoft has done a far better job than Apple and Google have with mobile security?"

          Yep, Way better. No critical vulnerabilities in Windows Mobile.to date and zero malware.

        3. mswin10

          Re: I've disabled

          I love these forums so many comedians

          1. Michael Maxwell

            Re: I've disabled

            You perhaps have a counterexample to his claim?

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: I've disabled

            Even if you believe that documentably false statement that there are no vulnerabilities/malware, are you so dumb as to believe that would continue so you don't ever need to patch?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: I've disabled

              "Even if you believe that documentably false statement that there are no vulnerabilities/malware"

              The statement was no "critical vulnerabilities" in Windows Mobile which is demonstrably true. As is the stated zero Malware. Unless you have evidence otherwise?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    A familiar chant

    Shouted at Louis Van Gaal from the terraces of Old Trafford of late is most apt for Microsoft:

    You don't what the F... your doin'

    Rinse and repeat.

  5. Nate Amsden

    losing an opportunity

    Back when HP had WebOS (before they killed it) I felt HP needed to invest about $5B in order to make it into a real contender for mobile market share(not long after they went and spent $10B+ on Autonomy), a lot of that was good apps. HP paid several developers if I recall right to develop for WebOS for a while at least. Obviously the OS needed work as well, it was sad to see it's decline, I felt constantly that no matter what HP (or Palm just prior) was doing the OS was falling further and further behind every day.

    MS obviously has more skin in the game than HP ever did, and I suspect it would take closer to $10B of investment today to bring windows phone to a competitive space. They obviously have the cash. I guess the investment community doesn't want them to use it in this way though.

    If I were dictator of MS I would invest in say 100 different startups around the world folks developing applications, fund them to make the cool and unique things for windows phone. Invest at least $20 million in each of the 100 companies. Get some diversity of development going on.

    Or do something else equally dramatic, commit to supporting a given OS version for 5+ years without major upgrades being required. Maybe they will try this for windows 10 but I suspect they may be trying to pull a "OS X" with Windows 10 having 10 being a somewhat generic number and piling in both major and minor changes along the way. Microsoft's phone platforms seem to be the worst of the worst as regards to MS quickly abandoning all support for them. I'm partially referring to OS level patches etc but more so for apps. Even though most Android devices are unsupported OS patch wise from their manufacturers quite quickly, the apps themselves continue to work, I suspect a large portion of apps still work fine on Android 3 even today. And apps that maybe were built for say Android 3 a lot of which probably still work fine on 4, or even 5. Some exceptions and bugs of course.

    I'm not a fan of MS so part of me is happy to see them not do "whatever it takes" to win. I'm happy with Android 4.4.4. (no I don't want android 5 or 6, or IOS or anything else).

    One thing I have wondered though, haven't tried to look it up, is where was WebOS market share at the time say HP bought Palm, vs where is Windows phone market share today. Obviously the market is much bigger today but the % numbers have me curious.

    1. marekt77

      Re: losing an opportunity

      Palm should have been bought by Nokia. WebOS at it's release was very good, and competitive with Android and iOS. I would dare to say that it ran MUCH better than Android at the time. Having had the HTC G1 and Nexus One, I know how clunky Android was at the time.

      What Palm didn't have was very good hardware, and that disastrous launch on Sprint didn't help them either. Nokia had awesome hardware, but was making a mess in software. Their Symbian based line, the N900 with was Meego, etc...

      Had they bought Palm and dropped WebOS on Nokia hardware and did a massive push, I am thinking both of those stories would be quite different today.

      I would wager that a Nokia/WebOS combination would have blunted Android growth, and gave iOS run for it's money.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: losing an opportunity

        WebOS had an issue too. It killed compatibility with all the PalmOS applications (besides having a silly name). I never understood why Palm attempted a full reboot, and the dual WinCE/WebOS strategy didn't pay off. MS is following the same way trying to reinvent Windows mobile OS every two years.

        1. Nate Amsden

          Re: losing an opportunity

          Killed native palm apps yeah. There was an emulator for a while that I used that worked well. Though eventually they broke compatibility with that as well.

      2. imaginarynumber

        Re: losing an opportunity

        "I would wager that a Nokia/WebOS combination would have blunted Android growth, and gave iOS run for it's money."

        ?

        Nokia's Symbian was the market leading smartphone OS (by market share) until the middle of 2010, at which point Android usurped them. iOS has never been the market leader.

  6. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    FAIL

    What a load of old cock

    Certainly not in the 'Top Gear' part of the phone world.

    This is not an upgrade due to the loss of functionality. Can't they even get it to read files produced by their own software? See Icon

  7. Aoyagi Aichou
    Mushroom

    1020 owner here

    The promise of arrival of W10M upon my device was the only reason why I hadn't thrown it away long time ago. I'm incredibly furious now. If this isn't planned obsolescence, I don't know what is.

    1. mswin10

      Re: 1020 owner here

      The only thing Microsoft promised was to try for the older or 512 models of which they used the

      insider program for feedback unfortunately the feedback they received for

      certain models showed the experience was not good I for one fed that info back

      in relation to the 520 and 530 and now I have rolled them back and they are

      working fine.

      I also have a 930 and my Wife's 735 and grandsons 635 are working fine on windows10 and by the way if you really want WP10 the latter 3 excellent models can be picked up cheaply on EBay.

      1. Aoyagi Aichou

        Re: 1020 owner here

        Thanks for the offer, but I don't know why should I downgrade my hardware to get the newest OS.

        And yes, MS did promise to update *every* WP8 device to W10M. At least twice. I understand they didn't update weak devices, like the 520, but not updating fully capable phones like the 1020 or 925 is just pure scumbaggery.

        Edit: Looks like you copied the message weirdly from the shill central, it's really a pain to read.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 1020 owner here

        "I also have a 930 and my Wife's 735 and grandsons 635 are working fine"

        And what about your children?

        I have to report that the Windows phones of all my wives, concubines, girlfriends, their children and grandchildren work fine, as expected.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 1020 owner here

      I'm a 1020 owner too. It works great. I'm desperate to keep W10 off it. Thank you Microsoft. What do you think W10 will give you that 8.1 doesn't? W10 looks like the final nail in Microsoft's mobile strategy. Replacing 8.1 which works well with a half-assed botch job that does less. A winning strategy.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's a phone OS but...

    "When you install the Windows 10 upgrade, some features currently on your device will be modified or removed, including the following:

    Notifications for missed calls..."

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's a phone OS but...

      Missed in what context that was for didn't you. The phone unreliably report emails, does reports missed calls, but no long reports them on contact tiles.

      Why they have fucked about will all this functionality that worked, who knows.

  9. Andy france Silver badge
    Happy

    I didn't stop

    I actively installed the upgrade app and asked to upgrade to Windows 10 Mobile. Given Mr Orlowski's dire warnings you could imagine it's akin to bricking the phone. It's not. It all works really well on my Lumia 640XL, almost as if they had waited pushing it out in a raw DevOps fashion and spent some time testing and fixing bugs.

    I haven't seen any bugs in it yet but it seems there are still a few known ones and undoubtedly more still to be discovered. I'm not too worried for now. It's not as if I'm going to have to wait a year (if ever) for a fix to be pushed out by the mobile network operators. I received the first bug fix update this morning.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I didn't stop

      Not quite sure where Mr Orlowski's got his information from or if he tried it himself which I think very unlikely I rolled back to 8.1 the Nokia 635,735 and 930 last night then done the office upgrade and to date have not had any issues and especially Cortana working fine a I opened apps mad direct calls browsed the web and was able to wake up the 930 with hey Cortana and live tiles updating no probs sounds like humbug to me

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You know who else forced others to comply or zer vill be consequencez

    That's right. Nazi Germany.

  11. Alan Denman
    Coffee/keyboard

    Forced update, no going back, competition

    They seem to be competing to fuck up your device. Upgrade is becoming the most abused terminology in computing.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Forced update, no going back, competition

      True, but for fact that it's not forced and you can easily revert back.

    2. Stoneshop
      Holmes

      Re: Forced update, no going back, competition

      Upgrade is becoming the most abused terminology in computing.

      How about 'upgrate' for upgrades that appear to be, but aren't?

      1. MacroRodent
        Mushroom

        Re: Forced update, no going back, competition

        Actually, "upgrade" is fast becoming a dirty word among users.

        It practically always means beloved features are lost (or replaced by inferior alternatives), and even if not, the software becomes more sluggish for no good reason.

    3. Jagged

      Re: Forced update, no going back, competition

      I fully expect Microsoft to adopt the "Full Skype" approach to upgrading, and when we turn our PCs on (why would we ever turn them off?) we can lean-back, relax and have our experience upgraded :/

  12. Medixstiff

    Nice to see M$ taking the Apple approach and releasing a Beta product for it's victims, I mean customers to sort out for them.

  13. carryonvending

    Updated my Lumia 930 then found @SearchMapsCMRes.dll in the Apps notitifications, Queried but no reply. Seems it may be BAIDU for China... Spooky

    Hard Reset... now working but no Notification Sounds and no HEY Cortana (worked before upgrade)

    The @SearchMapsCMRes.dll in the Apps notitifications is now not there, even more spooky.

    The UI is lovely, but it does seem scrappy... Now wondering do I go Android next after 20 years with Nokia phones.

  14. Ryan Clark

    meh

    I upgraded my 930 last week. All appears to be working fine. I like some of the visual tweaks that have been made and I don't use Cortana anyway.

  15. Schlimnitz

    Here will be (indirectly) killed by upgrading too

    So count me out

  16. RyokuMas
    Meh

    Hmmm...

    So the first result for "Windows 10 mobile is"... comes out with "dead" - on Google. Funnily enough, on Duck Duck Go, I just get "... iso" and "... issues". But it's not like Google would ever bias their search results to harm a competitor, right?

    That said, I kind of hope that it does get pulled, for the sole purpose of shutting up the commentards on here whose sole purpose seems to be trolling for anything Windows Phone related... makes me wonder what their motivation is...

    1. Phil Kingston

      Re: Hmmm...

      Isn't Ddg just a proxy for Google, but just with all the useful personalised results unavailable?

      Anyway, yes - the time to kill their mobile offering is now. It's the kindest thing to do.

    2. Longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure

      Re: Hmmm...

      DuckGoGo? Surely you mean Bing...

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