Windows Phone 7 Software Update Breaks Certain Handsets

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There’s a big software update coming for Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 devices next month but the company’s rolling out some sort of minor pre-update in order to grease the wheels, so to speak.

That update has been gradually rolling out over the air to certain users this week, and people have been reporting that some Samsung handsets have either stalled during the update process or been bricked altogether.

According to Ars Technica:

“The updates are failing to install in two ways. For lucky individuals, the process merely hangs on step seven (out of ten); rebooting the phone resurrects it, albeit without the upgrade. For a minority of unlucky users, the process fails at step six, and corrupts the phone’s firmware. What’s worse is that for some of them it appears to be bricking the phone completely, rendering it useless.”

If your phone’s been affected by this update, you can attempt to recover it by holding down the power, camera and volume down buttons for 15 seconds as you power the phone on, according to Ars. Then choose the “format” option.

Microsoft has reportedly isolated the problem and prevented the update from being pushed out to Samsung-branded Windows Phone 7 handsets until it works out a fix, according to WinRumors. Customers with bricked phones have been advised to exchange them for new ones at retail stores.

More on TIME.com:

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