How To Update Your Windows Phone 7 NoDo, Mango ,Tango, Apollo

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I recently found out that probably half of the Windows Phone 7 users have not updated their phones to Mango yet. Being a techie this baffles me. But for the end user I suppose it could be understandable. The iPhone you always needed iTunes to update your phone and with Windows Phone 7 you need Zune. The difference is when you buy and iPhone you need iTunes to even use the thing at all so users are much more aware that the phone relies on iTunes. I am not sure if you still need iTunes with iOS 5 but historically you have.

Windows Phone 7 Updates

Windows Phone 7 (WP7) has been out for a little over a year and has had 2 updates pushed out. The first update was NoDo and was pushed out almost a year ago. The most recent was pushed out just last fall and was nicknamed Mango. A lot of users probably have no idea how to update because they are not familiar with the Zune software.

Zune is to WP7 as iTunes is to iPhone.

Just like you have always needed iTunes to sync music, pictures, video, and do phone updates for your iPhone, you need Zune to take full advantage of WP7. I am just going to list out quick basic steps for those of you that might be running an outdated version of WP7 because the most recent update for WP7 made the device 10 fold better. The Mango update easily put WP7 on par with IOS and Android and in some aspects much better. WP7 is still less developed than the two big names because it is much younger, but it is quickly approaching.

Update Your Windows Phone 7 Device

Whether you have the Samsung Focus, Focus S, Focus Flash, HTC Titan, Radar, Dell Venue Pro, or any other WP7 device this will all be the same process.

  1. Download and install Zune if you haven’t already
  2. Plug the USB cord from your phone to your computer
  3. Zune should start automatically but if not then locate and start it
  4. Go through the setup wizard that Zune presents to you (it will ask you to name your device and you can name it whatever you want). *You may have previously setup your device
  5. Zune should prompt you that you have an update. If not then try unplugging the USB and plugging it back in. If that does not work restart your computer
  6. You will have to accept terms and just click “next” through the update process. Depending on your which update, computer speed, network speed, and phone the update could take 30-45 minutes, maybe less
  7. Lastly, Zune should tell you that the update was successful with a “finish” button

Images of WP7 Update Process

Samsung Focus NoDo Update Windows Phone 7

Samsung Focus When Connected To Computer For an Update


Update Windows Phone 7 Mango

Here You See The Zune Software With A Prompt To Install An Update. This Update Specifically Was The NoDo Update.


Samsung Focus WP7 Successful Update

This Is The Final Page Displayed By Zune When You Update Your Windows Phone Device

NOTE: If you have never updated your Windows Phone 7 device you might have to do this process more than once to make sure that you have all of the updates. This should only apply to people that bought very early WP7 devices. Windows Phone 7 Mango is a must have update. Any questions/comments or help needed just respond below.

  • dacholiday dach

    Perhaps you may know how to actually get a WP7 phone to update when the update continues to fail over and over. There are dozens of people on the wp7 forums with the same issue. Error 801812c1. Which tells us all its a driver issue. But there is no driver issue.
    The forum tells us all the same thing to go thru their “wizard” I have done it many times with no luck. Or they tell us to find someone else to allow us to download zune onto their computer and try updating from a different computer. Which is unacceptable. People do not want strange software on their computers.
    AT&T even told me this week when I had a problem with my phone, that because I have not updated my phone that they will not honor the warranty on it. I told them that I could not get it to update, and was basically told so sorry too bad. The ATT store couldnt help me either. They said they don’t have access to Zune software either.
    Any ideas. My computer runs xp and has all the required updates.

  • bkbillma

    I will apologize if I give advice or links that you have already tried, but I have never seen this issue so I can only go off of what I find.

    From my initial finds I assume you are still on pre-NODO (7004,7008). Also from what I can see it seems to be mostly on Windows XP/Vista. The problem doesn’t seem to be with Zune or WP7 but rather with the computer itself trying to find a driver update or something of the like. I know that Windows XP has massive problems with file access speeds if you have a network drive setup. Especially if the network drive is unable to connect. I am unsure of your tech level so if I am over your head or off the mark please let me know. But, people often have drivese mapped to access files on a work/school server.

    If you do have any network drives setup I speculate that could be the issue. Windows 7 doesn’t have any issues like this which is why I am thinking it is usually XP/Vista users. If this isn’t the problem I suspect it could just plain be that your computer’s network and/or hard drive is slow and this is not something that MS accounted for when making these updates. I know it is a hard thing to to accept and MS should fix it but considering they no longer do any updates to XP/Vista I don’t think it is likely.

    I hope that my first suggestion might work for you. If not let me know and I can try to dig deeper. Just from what I have read I am fairly positive that the issue is related to XP/Vista known file access/network access issues. As these have caused strange problems before with various softwares.