A day after withdrawing the first update for its Windows Phone 7 OS for smartphones, Microsoft has defended the failure saying only a few large-scale software updates are perfect.
Microsoft had put the update on hold for users of Samsung devices following glitches that affected what it said was a "small number of phones." Now the company has revealed that 1 in 10 users who tried to install the update were affected.
The update was designed to improve the updating process and to facilitate future enhancements such as cut and paste. However, it caused problems such as loss of data and crashes in Samsung smartphones running Windows Phone 7 after it was released on Tuesday.
Michael Stroh wrote in the official Windows Phone blog, "More answers about our first software update", that contrary to some of the gloomy headlines, their preliminary internal data paint a very different picture about update progress.
He said 90% of users have installed the new software patch successfully, so the glitch will be a non-event soon.
He added that "nearly half" of the remaining 10% faced problems due to internet connection problems or lack of storage space.
Defending the failure, Stroh wrote, "Has the update process gone perfectly? No – but few large-scale software updates ever do, and the engineering team here was prepared."
"As the teams here continue to monitor the ongoing update, I’ll report back if there are any other noteworthy developments."
Earlier this year, Microsoft was engaged in a tiff with Yahoo over the OS after a glitch in the Windows Phone 7 caused exchange of "phantom" data in some phones using the OS.
