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As a consumer, I am constantly frustrated with wireless carriers’ approach to the devices they hawk. Too often I have seen a new version of a device operating system come out, but the carriers (or equipment manufacturers, for that matter) have little (no) intention of providing the new code to existing customers.
“Want the new version? Buy this new device (plus a two year contract and a $36 activation fee) ‘cough’ ‘cough'”
With that in mind, I was pretty shocked to see T-Mobile not only quickly embracing Windows Mobile 6.0 for unsold stock, but also offering a free upgrade for some of the devices already out in the field — specifically the T-Mobile Dash and MDA smart phones.
Since the opportunity to actually try an in-the-field upgrade comes along so rarely, I had T-Mobile ship me a Dash with Windows Mobile 5.0 so I could try out the upgrade myself.
The upgrade code for WM 6.0 is available from the T-Mobile support site, and there is a link on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile page as well. Downloading the code requires the user to input their T-Mobile phone number — which turns out to be the hardest part of the whole process since T-Mobile never activated the SIM card they sent me with the Dash.
Thankfully, one of my co-workers is a T-Mobile customer, so I was able to use their number to get the download.
Turns out the whole process was really easy. I connected the Dash to my PC with ActiveSync 4.2 installed and ran the update executable. The screens below pretty much explain it all:
The upgrade took around 10 minutes to complete. When it was done, I received a message on the PC saying that I also needed to update ActiveSync to version 4.5 to complete the upgrade (my Dash came with version 4.2).