Portions of the press were especially eager to report on news that Microsoft's first update for Windows Phone 7 – rolled out at the end of February, but still reaching handsets now – had gone slightly awry.

While 90 percent of phones received the update without hitch, 10 percent encountered problems that, for Samsung Omnia 7 owners at least, bricked their phones.

Patch problems

In response, Microsoft quickly pulled the update for Samsung handsets to work on a fix – a fix that hit Zune this week and, indeed, goes some way to solving the problem.

While there's now no chance that any handsets running the update will be rendered useless once it's over, it appears Omnia 7 owners are being advised to avoid applying it regardless.

The reason? Anyone attempting to install the update with less than 4GB of memory free on their Omnia 7 will encounter error 800705B4 – not quite as serious as a full on bricking, but an unwelcome hassle nonetheless.

Solution specialists

As a result, Microsoft is reportedly looking into the issue, using Twitter to advise Samsung owners to pass over the update for now until it's pieced together just what the problem is and offered up yet another solution.

It's another chapter in what has proved to be a difficult period for Microsoft's OS.

While such firmware faults are hardly unique to Windows Phone 7, the ongoing nature of the problem means Omnia 7 owners are unlikely to receive the platform's first update all too long before the second, rather more major, refresh rolls out later in March.

[source: The Register]