For the latest in a growing line of snafus, several insider program users sporting unsupported devices were able to download and install Windows 10 Mobile build 10536 anyway, even though they shouldn’t be able to, thanks to a bug in the build. Such devices consist primarily of non-Lumia devices, such as the HTC 8X, and some BLU devices and others. As indicated in our previous report, Gabe Aul tweeted urging such users to refuse the update. But who listens to public advisories these days? Especially when there’s a shiny new, long-awaited and teased build on the way!
In addition to being a dead end path upgrade-wise, the pulled build is also wreaking havoc on these unsupported devices, either crippling them in some fashion or outright bricking them. The situation has gotten bad enough that Microsoft has assembled a team specifically to deal with this issue.
This is a high priority for us to solve and have a team dedicated to it. We will let you know as soon as we have info on recovery.
— Gabriel Aul (@GabeAul) September 17, 2015
As of now, no ETA is available for when this fix might be available. Heck, the team hasn’t even really promised a fix; it’s working on repair options, with no guarantees that a suitable fix will be made.
This is a very regrettable turn of events for what was supposed to be a celebrated event: the arrival of a long overdue build for insiders to test out. Gabe Aul excitedly tweeted last week that the Windows 10 Mobile team finally had a build it could show off, but was debating holding back because of several annoying bugs. Rather than do something sensible like tossing a coin, Gabe let the fans decide the fate of the ticking time bomb of a build by conducting an online Straw poll. Despite the poll crashing, it produced a rather predictable result, with some 90% of respondents voting to release. Hence the team began preparing to distribute build 10536.
Examining the play-by-play reveals what could be described by some as sloppy management. It’s not really fair to blame the outcome of this update on Gabe’s hilarious antics though, as the detectoids bug was not found until after they began rolling out build. So in some sense, these problems could be seen as inevitable. It should also be stated that this is perhaps the first time in the company’s history that Microsoft has conducted OS development in so transparent and interactive a fashion. This open and welcoming development scheme is the future for the face of Microsoft’s OS development, so these mishaps could be considered growing pains in the grand scheme of things. I only hope that Microsoft takes this opportunity to learn from its mistakes, and to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again in the future.
Further reading: build 10536, Gabe Aul, Windows 10 Mobile
