Windows Phone Recovery Tool worked as advertised

This is about one scenario where you may need to go back to the factory installed settings for your phone. There could be many other cases where you may need to restore the original image of the phone's OS. The Windows Phone Recovery Tool did fix the problem. This post is about restoring the phone to the original state.

This particular scenario is about a Nokia Icon, a Verizon specific phone. It had Windows 8.0 when purchased and later a Windows Phone 8.1 preview was installed. When finally Verizon rolled out Windows Phone 8.1, Nokia Icon was upgraded to Windows Phone 8.1.

Recently Windows 10 Technical Preview for Windows Phone became available. (http://hodentekmobile.blogspot.com/2015/07/good-news-for-windows-phone-users-and.html)

This post here describes the step-by-step procedure to download and install the preview.
http://hodentekmobile.blogspot.com/2015/07/installing-windows-10-technical-preview.html)

However it became apparent that the update/install process did not work even after dozens of trials including soft reset etc. The process would start and go through the process of installing at the end of which the error is displayed.

Interested readers may want to follow this link on the Insider's forum:
I seem to satisfy all requirements but I get 0x80070070 error installing Windows Phone 10 Technical Preview on Nokia Icon

The upgrade to Window 10 Technical preview would now involve two steps:

• Recover the original Windows Phone 8.1 to the state it was in when upgraded to Windows Phone 8.1
• Upgrade the phone to the new version namely, Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones (most likely Windows 10 RTM for Nokia Icon may not be available well into 2016, if lucky)

The rest of what follows deals with restoring the phone to its original state, the first step.

After dozens of trials it was decided to restore the Windows Phone to its original state using the Settings/backup on the Windows Phone which will backup
1.apps+settings,
2. text messages, and
3.photos/videos.

After backing up as above the Settings | About| Reset your phone button was clicked. The Windows Phone displayed the usual warnings about a reset operation and went into a series of screen changes which involved the usual screen with 'gears' and sometimes flash of Windows Icon and sometimes just NOKIA in the center of screen. The reset operation did not succeed although the Windows Phone was left connected to the AC mains with the USB cable. After some 14 hours in this state of 'limbo'.
 it was decided to use the 'Windows Phone recovery tool' to recover the Windows Phone to the original settings.

The Windows Phone recovry tool was downloaded from here to the laptop:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Mobile-Phone-Tools/Others/Windows-Phone-Recovery-Tool.shtml

Click Download button on this page to display

Click on External mirror1 and save the file to the laptop or PC.

 

Windows Phone Recovery Tool 2.1.1 details:

----------------
2.1.1 **
- Bug fixes
** 2.1.0 **
- SW recovery improvements for Lumia Phones that are not detected.
- Bug fixes
** 2.0.3 **
- Support for HTC One Windows Phones.
** 1.2.4 **
- Bug fixes and small improvements.
** 1.1.0 **
- Tool is now localized in 40 different languages.
- Several bug fixes.
** 1.0.6 **
- Bug fixes
** 1.0.4 **
- Bug fixes
** 1.0.3 **
- This is the first official release of the new Windows Phone
Software Recovery Tool. Tool currently supports all WP8 Microsoft
Lumia phones and later also other brands.
- Software recovery allows you to get the phone to latest available
software version. All user data will be erased in the process.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Double click the tool in its saved location.

Connect your phone to the PC (in this case a laptop) with the USB Cable. Do not disconnect or mess with phone till the process is complete. You may need to push the Volume Low and Power buttons on the Windows Phone together till it vibrates.

 

The recovery tool properties for Nokia Lumia.

 

ToolProps.png

 

Click on Lumia icon.

The program is waiting for the phone to be connected. You should really get the phone to connect by pressing the Volume down and Power down/up button till you feel the vibrations.

Click on the Install Software button. Another warning and a disclaimer.

Click Continue. A package will be downloaded and it is a hefty file (1.6GB). This takes quite a bit of time depending on your Internet connection speed.

It is better to start with fully charged battery.

Click Next.

The package installation process begins. The phone selection page is displayed. If it does not you ma have to press hard the Volume down and Power buttons together till you feel the vibration.

Click on Lumia 929 (this is Lumia model number for the Nokia Icon).

The program will try to read the phone information.

By this time your phone starts up with Verizon and Windows splash screens and you will asked to customize. The phone is now restored to the Windows Phone 8.1 Original.

The restore agent will pop-up and guides you through restoring the app settings etc. Your apps, alarms, contacts will all be recovered. The photos/videos are all gone, perhaps uploaded to the OneDrive. If it was uploaded to OneDrive, I am not sure which named location it was uploaded to. Fortunately I had copied all the photos/videos to a 1TB drive.

The version of Windows Phone 8.1 restored was the following:

Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 apps with Visual Studio 2015 Community

In my previous post I made a premature remark regarding Windows Phone apps. I remarked, "For developing Windows Phone applications you may need to install a different version of Visual Studio.
"
I was wrong.

Well, it turned out that some of the software support is not installed by default and you need to install them clicking on the link you find for many of the templates like 'Windows, Python, F#, etc.".
I tried to install support for Visual C++ under other languages and the following was displayed.


MissingTools.png

I clicked Install to install the necessary components.

MissingTools_1.png

Well you need to close the IDE which allowed you to come to the above. Click Continue. The following features will be installed.

MissingTools_2.png

Clacking Next brings up the next window. Note that you need an additional 2GB space.

MissingTools_3.png

 

Now you are ready to update your tools. Click Update. Here is an intermediate state of installation.

 

 

MissingTools_5.png

The install is completed.

The next time you launch VS 2015 Community you will see the following:

 

MissingTools_6.png

This effectively adds all Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 templates for all languages including JavaScript.

This installation updates Visual Studio 2015 Community in Control Panel|.| Programs.

Here are some more details:

Visual Basic templates now available include the new and classic as shown.

VB_win01.png

These are the Windows 8 related templates (Windows 8, Windows Phone 8.1, Silverlight). Note that the scroll is only halfway. There are many more templates.

VB_win01_W8.png

 

These are the Windows Classic Desktop templates.

VB_win01_Classic.png

 

to be continued..



 

Want to improve your Windows 8 HTML/JS project skills then get this show going

The CodeShow() on CodePlex is one source which may help you a great deal in programming for the Windows 8 Platform. You may get a comprehensive picture of an end-to-end app but more importantly CodeShow() gives you an opportunity to learn all the bits and pieces of accessing devices like camera, error handling with grace etc.

In order to install CodeShow() there are some options. You can install from Windows Store from here:
http://aka.ms/codeshowapp

This not some kind of an executable but bundled source code.

Another option is to get the source code from here
http://codeshow.codeplex.com/.

Once here, you can download a zip file by hitting the marked tab (Download). This will give you a snapshot of the source code as it exists at the time you downloaded. Mark you,  it gets continuously updated and if you are not vigilant you may miss out. This is a zip file and extract everything to your favorite folder.

There is yet another option Clone it or Fork it.

If you are going to fork it then it  means you are going to contribute to its development.

If you clone it you will be getting the latest version to work on and you can do this from Visual Studio 2013 (should be at least Update2). You will use the Team explorer tab in the Solution Explorer.

The details of getting to work with the clone are available at the CodePlex site.
 

Jump start your Cross-Platform App Development skills with Intel's XDK

In my previous post some of the cross-platform app development tools/programs were described in a general way.  In this post I describe the Intel XDK tool which does not require skills except HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript.

From here you can jumpstart your App development skills after downloading the Intel XDK. You can write once and deploy to several platforms.

It is generally argued that while HTML5/CSS3/Javascript is a good option to create cross-platform apps it is only suitable for some simple, inexpensive apps. In order to buld more complex apps you need a single language to access the 'native apis'. Hardware specific apis are accessed
by a variety of languages like Java, .NET, Objective-C etc. There does not exist a single language to access the machine specific information for all platforms.

However, a large number of Apps fall into the 'inexpensive/simple apps' that integrate many of the social media applications and in these cases the Html5/CSS/Javascript is more than adequate. Apps based on HTML5 can also contribute to the number of apps in a store to improve the perceived lack of apps for Windows for example. Well at the end of the day quality and not quantity of apps that matters

What is Intel XDK?

Open Source PhoneGap (http://phonegap.com/) technology was instrumental in getting AppMobi (http://www.appmobi.com/) to use HTML5 for App development. Intel came along and acquired AppMobi and it was renamed XDK. Perhaps it then went rounds of revisions and tweaks to become Intel XDK. Right now in preview but will be a full fledged tool one day soon.

This video explains the Open Source PhoneGap.

BTW PhoneGap is free and you can download from the PhoneGap Site.
Here is a screen shot of Intel XDK homepage:

Intel XDK is free and can be downloaded from here,

http://xdk-software.intel.com/

for Windows 7, Windows 8, Apple OSX and Ubuntu Linux.

The installer Intel's Software Install Assistant installs xdk_web_win_master_0876 (~90MB); file version 1.0.9.38
Just double click the installer.

After extraction is completed the Welcome page is displayed.

In the Welcome Page click Next. Here you choose the destination. Default was chosen here.

Click Next to get to the installation summary page.

Click Install.
Installation begins..

Pretty soon it is completed. Very uneventful installaiton.

Click Finish and you are done.
The first time you use it you will have to login into Intel XDK.
Then provide the required information

That's it. Now you are ready to develop.
Watch future Intel XDK posts on
http://hodentek.blogspot.com and/or
http://hodentekMobile.blogspot.com

 

Quo vadis? Cross-Platform App development - Part 1

There are lots and lots of Apps. In fact there are over a couple of million Apps including all of the major brands, Apple, Google, Blackberry, Microsoft with Apple at the top and Microsoft in the bottom. But this is a growing market. The variety is truly bewildering, different size devices; different operating systems(OS); different programming languages;  and different orientations.

This post is not very recent but you can see how the various mobile operating systems compare:
http://www.ibtimes.com/android-vs-ios-whats-most-popular-mobile-operating-system-your-country-1464892
The interactive image in the article really shows the popularity of a given OS/device among different geographical regions.

Windows Phone Apps is for example based on Microsoft's Window 7, 8, 8.1 OSs using .NET. With Windows OS and Visual Studio one can build Apps for all of Microsoft devices covering Phone, Tablet and Desktop. However Microsoft Windows Apps sans Html5/CSS/Javascript is OS specific. Even for apps built with Html5/CSS/Javascript the WinJS file is required (or recommended) in most cases.

Apple Apps can be used on both iPad and iPhone as long as certain files specific to each device profile is available, in general iPhone apps can be used on iPad but not the other way. However the so called iOS Universal apps can be used on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad (before the advent of iOS Universal there were two binaries created for each type). XCode/Interface Builder was used to create the iOS Universal. Although XCode, a superset of Objective-C makes this easy it is not straight forward mainly due to device size differences. Again Apple Apps are specific to devices running Apple iOS.

The same is true of Android Apps. It is built using Java in a multi-user Linux system. The recommended development platform is Eclipse. Read more here, http://developer.android.com/guide/components/fundamentals.html

Latest version of Eclipse Standard here:
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-standard-44/lunar

However there have been several developments (bridge programs) to have a single program that can build Apps to work on any device.

• With Xamarin you can use C# shared library to build native iOS, Android, Mac and Windows apps.

http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/01/master-c-and-become-universal-coder.html

•  PhoneGap (Apache Cardova) developer app used with Windows can bundle the App for a variety of platforms.

http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/06/open-source-mobile-app-development-with.html

• XDK Platform from Intel can similarly create apps for multiple OSs using Html5/CSS/Javascript similar to the PhoneGap, in fact using a later version.

https://software.intel.com/en-us/html5/xdkdocs

• Outsystems cloud based development platform can build apps that works with both Java and .NET environments and you can derive source code for each of these OSs

http://www.outsystems.com/

Html5/CSS/Javascript not dependent on any specific vendor together with responsive design should address most of the cross-platform requirements. I am sure more programs on the way in this general direction.

 August 20:
Get a good brief on Intel XDK here including installation:
http://hodentekmobile.blogspot.com/2014/08/cross-platform-apps-are-easy-with-intel.html
 

Have you installed Windows 8.1 Update 1?

This update would have taken place during one of the Windows Updates event (this happened in April 2014 in my computer). The computer properties does not give a clue that this happened. For example the Windows 8.1 Update 1 has been installed but the property page displays this:

However, this update can be installed manually as well, by downloading and installing a set of the following KB articles):

These can be downloaded from WindowsUpdate.com site.

If you search for these files in the Installed Updates window (Control Panel | Programs | Programs and Features | Installed Updates you may draw a blank except for the first two files. Only when you try to install them (this is a scenario in which you do not know that Update 1 has been installed) you would get a message that it is already installed.

However after the update you will notice that when you start the computer it boots to the desktop and not the Metro screen. You can also right click the Windows Logo occupying the place of the Start button in the previous version (Windows 7 and older) you can access a menu as shown:

Actually this is quite useful as it provides link to most of the stuff on the computer.

In the Metro screen you gt contextual drop-down menu for the apps; as well as you can get Power Options and Search without any swiping. This should satisfy the mouse users.

The Pin to taskbar menu item allows you to activate the app you want from the desktop screen.

 

Another thing you may notice is that all apps have a title bar showing the app logo at top left and minimize and close buttons top right. Quite useful too.

 

Windows 7 support is ending

Recently Microsoft turned off (or in the process) support for Windows XP and now it seems Windows 7 is also headed for the chopping block.

http://news.yahoo.com/microsoft-ending-mainstream-support-windows-7-early-2015-185319567.html?.tsrc=rogers

View details of the dead-line here:
https://bgr.com/2014/07/08/microsoft-windows-7-support-deadline/

However there will be an extended support after Jan 13, 2015 (not a Friday) for

Windows Server 2008
Exchange Server 2010
Windows 7 Home, Professional, Starter, Enterprise and Ultimate

The extended supports takes you Jan 14,2020, not too bad!
Go to Microsoft Web site to find finer details.

Creating a Azure Mobile Service application

This is quite easy as I am just describing a sample application on Windows Azure Mobile Services.

How to create a service?

Follow these links:

http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/05/get-started-with-windows-azure-mobile.html
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2014/05/create-windows-azure-mobile-service-and.html

Now once you create a service, you would like to use it. How?

This post explains the process using a sample created by Microsoft.
------------------------------------------------------------
This application  follows the sample on Microsoft Azure Mobile Services. You can directly create the 'app' on Windows Azure Mobile Services portal. After you create the application you can download the code to your computer. You then open the application (the downloaded code) in Visual Studio 2013. The suggested version is the following:

http://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs#d-express-windows-8

Note that although the URL above may suggest Windows 8, the page it takes you to is for Visual Studio Express 2013 with Update for Windows 8.

There was already installed on the machine the VS software with the following details:

Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows

Version 12.0.30501.00 Update 2

Microsoft .NET Framework

Version 4.5.51641

Windows Azure Mobile Services Tools 1.1

Windows Azure Mobile Services Tools

The following pertains to the Sample App: TodoList

With this app you can add an entry (encrypted) to your Todo list maintained on your mobile services with a simple UI as shown:

When you run the downloaded application (as explained in this post) you will display the UI using the Simulator in VS2013.

You type in a Todoitem (whatever it is, it is of type 'text') and click Save

The added item appears with a checkbox under Query and Update Data

Place check mark and click Refresh

That is all it is designed to do.

How do you create this app?

In order to acomplish this, you should first login to your mobile service. My previous post shows how you can create a service for free(for now).

Here is where I start on my mobile service

Click on Name of service to display the following:

Click on CREATE A NEW WINDOWS STORE APP

The following page is displayed:

I did not get the tools as I already had one installed.

Go to Step 2 and create a table to store you todo list. Click on Create TodoItem Table. It creates a named table on the service. You don't see the table, though.

In Step 3, you can choose JavaScript or C#. I have tried both but the C# choice, when run, throws a bunch of exceptions. Herein follows after choosing JavaScript.

Click Download and you can download a zip pakage to your computer. Extract files and access the Visual Studio Solution from VS2013Express for Windows Update 2 (preferably with elevated permissions). I will discuss the details in my next post.

When you run the app you will see what was shown in my earlier screen shots.

Well if you can save todolist items to mobile service you can save Customer Info, Contact List, and Hobbies etc.

Now how does this look on the mobile service portal. This shows how it is entered.

You can create a new table here clicking on the Data tab of the mobile service as shown.

This is a Windows 8 App and you cannot deploy it to Windows Phone 8.1 although you can access the data on the mobile services using its URL.

　

　

　

OMG! President Clinton at SharePoint Conference 2014

Thrilling to hear a President delivering Keynote address on SharePoint because I never associated Presidents with software.

SharePoint Conference 2014 will be held at Venetian Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas. Mark up your calendars, March 3 to 6.

You will hear all about SharePoint, Yammer and of course Office 365.
It's all about connecting, transforming and reimagining.

See you at Las Vegas!!!

 

Cloud-based PC and Mobile Device Management with Windows Intune gets an update

Windows Intune manages PC's and Mobile devices from the cloud and an update is coming soon. The Windows Intune web based admininstration console in the cloud can manage the PC's and mobile devices and includes all of these:

• Windows,
• Windows RT,
• Windows Phone 8,
• Apple iOS,
• Mac OS, and
• Android devices.

In an earlier avatar Windows Intune also needed System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager, but according to the following:

http://redmondmag.com/articles/2014/01/29/microsoft-to-roll-out-windows-intune-update-next-week.aspx

Windows intune now is stand alone. Review this quote is from the above site,
"In addition to our unified deployment mode and integration with System Center Configuration Manager, Windows Intune can now stand alone as a cloud-only MDM solution," Anderson wrote in a blog post. "This is a big win for organizations that want a cloud-only management solutions [sic] to manage both their mobile devices and PC's."
"
The main benefits are (taken from this source: http://www.microsoft.com/sam/en/us/intune.aspx),

• Track hardware and software inventory to efficiently manage your assets, licenses, and compliance.
• Manage updates. Centrally manage the deployment of the Microsoft updates and service packs that you select to all your devices from the Windows Intune console—freeing up your IT staff from routine management tasks.
• Protect devices from malware.  Help safeguard your devices from the latest threats with centralized protection built on the award-winning Microsoft Malware Protection Engine and using the same trusted technologies as Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection and Microsoft Security Essentials.
• Proactively monitor devices. Receive alerts on updates and threats so that you can proactively identify and resolve problems with your devices—before they impact users and your business.
• Provide remote assistance. Resolve device issues, regardless of where you or your users are located, with remote assistance.
• Set security policies. Centrally manage update, firewall, and malware protection settings across all of your devices, even on remote machines outside the corporate

Click  on the video to get a feeling for what all Windows Intune can do,

UK Government Chooses the OS - the winner is...

According to this article in TechRepublic, UK's Communication-Electronics Security Group seems to have checked out Linux, Windows and Mac OS X from the stand point of security and have come up with Linux as a clear winner.

After you read the article please also read the interesting comments both pro and cons before you jump into big conclusions.

The test for cheching out the Oss consisted of the following:

•VPN
•Disk Encryption
•Authentication
•Secure Boot
•Platform Integrity and Sandboxing
•Application Whitelisting
•Malicious Code Detection and Prevention
•Security Policy Enforcement
•External Interface Protection
•Device Update Policy
•Event Collection for Enterprise Analysis
•Incident Response

The specific OSs tested were Ubuntu 12.04 LTS; Windows 8  and  Mac OS X and the summary of the rating is:

*Ubuntu 12.04 nine of the 12 tests and had zero significant risks
*Windows 8 passed seven with 1 significant risk
*Mac OS X passed eight tests with zero significant risks

Well security is a very important parameter in the choice but there are other criteria such as cost as well. With Microsoft not supporting Windows XP in the near future there may folks looking for a suitable platform and perhaps some Windows folks may go over to Linux.

Learning to build Windows 8 apps on MVA

What is MVA?

MVA is Microsoft Virtual Academy and you can learn building apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 free of cost. That is right, at no cost to you (Well, that is mighty generous). Of course you can learn a whole lot of others besides Windows 8 and Windows 8 Phone.

Form factors is an important difference between these two platforms. Issues / concerns are described.

Check it out here:
http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training-courses/windows-8-and-windows-phone-8-app-development


For example, this particular course has 4 modules:

• Comparing Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8
• Basics of View Models
• MVVM
• Sharing Code

This paraticluar module (Comparing Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8) is neither about building apps for the two platforms nor it is going to show code that works for both platforms.
Code reusability is explored between the two operating systems.

Application Life cycle is explored:

 

Each platform has its own XAML Controls
UI reuse is not a thing that you can look forward to, but data model is the one that makes reuse easier. Data Model APs are portable (specifically read/write) across these two paltforms.

*Windows Phone 8 SQL CE
*WIndows 8 has no specific built-in database api
*MVVM helps porting code between the two platforms. Review Portable Class Libraries project template in Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate (non-express edition is needed).

 

 

The screen shots are captured from the video at the above site. The last screen shot is from Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate.