As I write, I’m half way through a ‘simple job’ – updating the software on a BlackBerry® Bold™ 9000. It’s taken me three hours to get this far!
My customer called last night to say he’d lost all sorts of features on his BlackBerry®. Emails and text messages had disappeared, the camera and sound profiles were not available and other things were missing. Assessing it this morning, I decided the best solution was to ‘simply’ upgrade the software to the latest version. He already had the BlackBerry® Desktop Manager on his computer so we started by making a backup of all his files and settings. All fine so far.
Next step: go to the correct website and download the latest BlackBerry® device software. Again, simple, right? Well, it would be if the site’s update feature didn’t lead you to an incorrect address, resulting in a ‘Page Cannot Be Found’ message. Hunting around on the ‘net a little, I managed to find the right software and began downloading. 125MB, estimated to take 30 minutes. 29 minutes in, the download failed. Deep breaths all round and try again! Fortunately it downloaded the second time.
Next step: follow the instructions to install the software. This involved unpacking the downloaded file, then opening the BlackBerry® program on the PC. Having plugged the BlackBerry® Bold 9000 into the PC, we found our next problem. The instructions said the software would offer an update. No such luck. I couldn’t even find an option to do it manually. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the instructions referred to “BlackBerry® Desktop Software”, while we had the original “BlackBerry® Desktop Manager” installed. So, another quick look online led us to the latest version of BlackBerry® Desktop Software – a 250MB download. Neither of us wanted to wait an hour for it to download, knowing it could fail again, so we decided I would take it up to my office in Pettistree, with a much faster broadband connection.
Fifteen minutes later I was downloading the new program. Ten minutes after that it was ready to install. Or so I thought! After a couple of clicks, it told me it could not install until a newer version of Microsoft .Net Framework was installed. Relieved I’d moved to my fast broadband, I proceeded to download and install the required update from Microsoft.
As I write, the BlackBerry® Desktop Software is slowly installing. That seems likely to take some time. If I’m lucky, once that has completed I will be able to actually update the BlackBerry® itself. Then it’s just a case of setting it all up properly, making sure all data is safe and returning it to my poor customer who is trying to cope for a few hours without his laptop and BlackBerry®.
As my little rant may seem a little long winded, here’s a ‘simple’ summary:
BlackBerry® Bold™ 9000 had lost various functions
So…
BlackBerry® Bold™ 9000 needed software update
But…
BlackBerry® Desktop Manager must first be replaced by Blackberry Desktop Software
But…
Newer Microsoft .Net Framework must be installed before this can be done
Equals….
Nearly 500MB worth of software downloads and approximately five hours of a computer expert’s time.
No wonder people get me to do this sort of thing for them!
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