News

Microsoft Delivers Windows Phone 'Mango' to Most Subscribers

• By Kurt Mackie
• October 20, 2011

For 10 percent of users, the Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango" update took effect in late September. On Wednesday, Microsoft announced it is "fully opening the spigot": Mango is now being delivered to most subscribers through their mobile phone service providers.

At the time of the initial Mango release, Microsoft explained that the gradual rollout schedule was necessary for Microsoft to coordinate with hardware manufacturers and their firmware updates. Moreover, service providers have final control over the releases.

Now, it appears that only a handful of service providers are having problems with Mango (described as "Build 7720"). The European carrier Orange is still working on technical issues that are delaying Mango updates, explained Eric Hautala, general manager of customer experience engineering at Microsoft. He added that Telefónica in Spain is just starting to schedule updates for LG Optimus 7 phones.

Operator update schedules for the United States and abroad can be accessed at this Windows phone update page.

Some Windows Phone 7 users will also get additional firmware updates on top of the Mango release. Whether a firmware update is coming depends on the user's mobile phone carrier, device model and country location, Hautala explained.

The actual update is accomplished by plugging a cable into the phone and a primary update PC or Mac after receiving an update message, according to Microsoft's "Update Central." Users need to have Zune software installed for Windows PCs or Windows Phone 7 Connector for Apple Macs. The software establishes a primary synchronization connection between the phone and the computer. The primary update computer holds all of the phone's update history, so Microsoft recommends using that machine for Windows Phone updates.

A trick to get Windows Phone 7.5 right now will work for those who are patient enough to try it. However, it's not necessary now that Mango is broadly released.

Some users apparently have experienced issues with disappearing keyboards after the Mango update, according to this developer forum thread. However, it's hard to find that complaint listed at the Microsoft Answers forum for Windows Phone.

For those users experiencing update issues and getting specific error messages, Microsoft offers a tool to fix the situation, which is described in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article.

Related:

• Windows Phone 7.5 'Mango': First Impressions