Robin Hoods Playground

Windows Phones Break Users' Memory Cards
by: Jason Mick

Windows Phone 7 makes permanent changes to memory cards that makes them unusable with other devices. The changes reportedly can not even be reduced by formatting. (Source: Engadget)
Yes, memory cards are supported, but Microsoft's latest OS seems to have a host of bizarre restrictions

There was much speculation over whether Microsoft would support memory cards in its Windows Phone 7 lineup, following comments by its project leaders indicating that it might not. Well the phones finally hit the market last week and some models did have memory card support. But perhaps it would have been better if they didn't.

Windows Phone 7 users are facing a pair of baffling issues surrounding the phone's memory card support.

First up, AT&T has warned users that they should only use only "Certified for Windows Phone 7" microSD cards with their Windows Phones. The only problem? No such cards currently are available.

According to supporting Microsoft documents, certification is more than "a simple matter of judging its speed class" and includes "[s]everal other factors, such as the number of random read/write operations per second, play a role in determining how well an SD card performs with Windows Phone 7 devices."

The second issue, and more critical issue is that Windows Phones essentially "break" users' memory cards making permanent changes to them that prevent them from being used with other devices. Windows Phone handset manufacturer Samsung warns that once you insert your memory card into the phone, "it will no longer be readable or writable on any other devices such as computers, cameras, printers, and so on."

Samsung claims that the modification (whatever it may be) actually prevents you from even formatting your memory cards to reverse the changes.

Fortunately Microsoft doesn't appear to be intentionally ruining users' hardware as Apple has tried to in the past, but unintentionally ruining it is almost as bad. If there's one thing worse than not implementing a much-requested feature it's implementing it horribly.

As the initial sales buzz works off, Microsoft must race to fix these issues or risk the public developing a negative perception of its new smart phones.

--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------

what a joke
there is no way in hell i would buy a phone that would lock my mem card to it
i am always moving cards around to move pictures and putting this card in that for the time being
To tell you the truth that sounds like something apple would pull a dumb ass move like that.

Microsoft must race to fix these issues or risk the public developing a negative perception of its new smart phones.

haha
what a joke
i never had a positive perception of there phones
now i just know how bad it really is

what is it with M$ and not being able to intergrate anything but M$,same thing with the hdd on the xbox ,like you say its a joke ,its the bit where it says you can not even put them in a pc,and chances are that includes a windows machine,"smell the bacon M$ its wake up time"

Dumbest thing I've heard, why have a memory card if your going to lock it to the phone.

Just incorporate internal storage, the whole reason to use SD card's is so users can swap them, and upgrade etc whenever they like.

Windows Phone 7 microSD card: why you can't change it
By Mary Branscombe
My though will be in red
Cofree
windows-phone-7-microsd-card-why-you-can-t-change-it

Microsoft has been saying all along that even if you can get at the microSD slot in a Windows Phone that the point isn't to be able to swap cards.

The MiniSD card (styled "miniSD") is a small form factor removable and portable memory device intended for use in cell phones/mobile phones, digital cameras, MP3 players and many other gadgets.

No M$ you dont get to redefine the meaning of a device just because you want to.

As general manager Charlie Kindel told TechRadar: "It is possible for the manufacturer to put a microSDcard in the phone - but that memory is not user serviceable, you can't pull it out or replace it."

The quick start guide tells you that if you do take the card out, the phone will reset itself and you won't be able to use the card in other devices.

That's because the OS pairs the card to the phone by locking it with an automatically generated password and checksum - which means it can recognise the card and be sure the content hasn't changed.

Why does Windows Phone 7 do that?

The truthful answer is money,as in M$ did not want to spend money on internal memory.so they make up this crap to try and convince those people that don't have a good understanding of this stuff that its the right thing.when in fact it's a way of getting a sale for something that is not complete and to get the full potential you have to spend money on a card that the phone will take and not let go.(so to speak ) Ok now please read on to the babble the M$ who ever has to say.

"We use the built-in flash memory on the phone and the flash on the microSD as a single file system," Kindel told us: "if the user were to pull it out, it would break that file system."

Your music, pictures, apps and everything else will be spread across both areas of storage and the phone has no way of knowing what's on the microSD card so it can't just tell you something is missing - it has to reset the phone to make sure you don't try to use something that's no longer available.


Setting the password isn't permanent - but the vast majority of devices don't implement passwords for SD cards so they won't even recognise the card to format it (some Nokia phones support this part of the SD card standard).

Windows Phone 7 microSD expansion

Suppose you want to replace a low capacity microSD with a larger one and you don't mind resetting your phone? After all you can get your apps back from the marketplace and your media from the Zune software.

The problem is, according to Charlie Kindel, "these memory cards have very different speed characteristics and if the user is willy-nilly putting in different memory cards that would hurt the phone experience."

Having a slow SD card in your camera will mean it takes slightly longer to save a photo but you might never notice; having apps launching from a slow SD card could make your Windows Phone feel very sluggish.

Why can't you just buy a fast microSD card of the right class?

"Yes, it's about read write speeds [which is what the SD class number indicates]," senior product manager Greg Sullivan told us. "The IO rate is part of it but actually what's equally important are the bit error rates. That will impact the speed of the checksum rewrite."

Microsoft was hoping that the issue wouldn't come up for most users (and we agree that the majority of mainstream users will never open up their phone to change the memory card).

"Most of the microSD slots are not user accessible for that very reason," Sullivan told us. When they are, as with the Samsung Focus, "there's a big sticker that asks you to read the Quick Start guide before changing the microSD".

Larger Windows Phone 7 microSD cards

The obvious answer is for Microsoft or the handset manufacturers to test and certify memory cards.

But the Windows Phone team told us they didn't have the time or resources to do this before launch, that manufacturers tested only the microSD cards they buy in bulk, which aren't available in retail - and that just going by what the chassis specification for the handset says (or even the class of the microSD card) isn't enough to guarantee good performance and performance varies between vendors and even between different cards from the same manufacturer.

The same member of the Windows phone team told us they're now busily buying every microSD card they can get their hands on and testing it in their phones, and when they have a list of which cards perform well enough to recommend they'll be distributing the information.

But for now, the official Microsoft line is still not to swap out your microSD card for a new one.

===========================

I just quite posting in the story
just about ever line in it is crap.
yes ,what M$ says is right BUTand that is a big but it dont have to be that way
in fact M$ did it the hard way and long way to make there phone do it this way.
In the end its M$ being such a big company it thinks it can do,rename,reorder and say what ever it wants and the people will just take what it says as the whole truth.
When most of us not just the 18,000 members of this site know them to be a lair.