As far as I can tell…

Microsoft expects me to keep my existing phone forever and never change to another brand within my lifetime…OR

They expect me to start out every new phone I have with a new email address and life (contacts, apps).

I say this because…

We purchased insurance on the phone we gave to son #2 (I gave him my old phone when I received my new Lumia 900).  Of course, Son #2 damaged the phone and the insurance came in handy.  We made him pay the $50 to replace the phone (gasp – fascist parent warning!) and they shipped the phone to us at home.

I made the decision to take the new phone – HTC 8x Windows phone; and give son the ‘old’ phone – Lumia 900.  So, to transfer my ‘stuff’ to the new phone should be easy-peasy, right?  Well apparently, not-so-much.

I start off by backing up my photos, etc. to my Zune.  That’s what the online guide said to do.  I then removed the SIM card from the Lumia and place it into the HTC.  Follow the instructions to set up the phone and BINGO.  Right?  Not.so.fast.

First I have to install the “Windows Phone App for Desktop” which keeps telling me my phone isn’t plugged in.

When I finally (four tries) get it installed, it won’t let me drag anything from my PC to my phone – only from my phone to my PC.  There’s nothing ON the phone.

THEN, I go to my Windows Live account to re-install my apps and…uh, oh…

Let me back up a bit.  A few weeks ago, Microsoft finished their “migration” of Hotmail to Outlook.  Apparently, I’m special because I was one of the few people who had to create new passwords and user names to access my Microsoft Live account. I now have two – one for my phone and email and one for my online Windows Live Account. 

The two accounts can be “linked” for email purposes, but they do not “link” for any other purpose under the sun that I can tell. There’s no way to switch between the two and copy or sync or upload or download or…oh brother!

So, my phone won’t let me use my frontier.com/Hotmail/Live account.  Which has all my “stuff” on it – but doesn’t recognize my new phone.  I have to use my new Outlook.com sign in to get my phone to continue setting up.  Okay, my phone works; my contacts are there, but no apps.

To FURTHER confuse the issue, my calendar has “disappeared” from my phone.  Oh, it’s there at the start screen, but my calendar is apparently linked with my frontier.com/Hotmail/Live account – which my phone won’t let me use to set up my phone.  I have NOTHING on the Outlook.com sign-in except contacts.

I thought I’d be smart and install my frontier.com email and disable the email sync function (I don’t use that email anymore).  This partially resolved the calendar issue, but not completely.

I tried to fix the problem myself by looking at helps online.  I watched two videos that had lousy sound quality and the screen didn’t match my phone.

I contacted the Microsoft Community help boards online.  The answer was for me to contact Xbox and get it fixed.  I’m not even sure how that can be.  Why would I contact Mattel if my Wii wasn’t working?

In desperation, I emailed my contact at Microsoft – the one who gave me the help with my original post regarding Microsoft / phone products.  He never answered.  Okay, it’s not his job to help me.  Or he’s busy.  Or he’s left the country.  Pick one.

So, in FINAL desperation, I bring a bottle of wine over to my friend Jen’s house.  She says “it’ll take about 15 minutes for me to fix this”.  Two bottles of wine and an hour-and-a-half later…she’s had to ‘crash’ my phone (start from scratch), delete the Lumia from my frontier.com/Hotmail/Live account and I have to come up with a new Outlook.com sign-in password.  Finally, I have my apps.  (There is a lot of the story I’m not writing here because it’s too confusing to put down on paper and I’m not even sure I understand how to explain it to anyone unless they could have looked at it.)

NOW my problem is that my calendars STILL don’t sync; I have no ringtones other than factory MS tones (migraine anyone?) and some of the apps I had on my Windows 7 phone no longer are available for Windows 8.  Like the off-market Starbucks card app that I LOVED.  Starbucks won’t write one for Windows.  I know, first world problems.

So I’ve spent a total of about 5 hours upgrading my phone.  It should be ‘easy’.  It shouldn’t require me to have a MCSE figure it out for me.  Overall, I’m not impressed, AGAIN with Microsoft Windows Phone product. 

ON a separate note, I think the HTC charger port is phony.  The charger cord doesn’t slide into the port easily, and it doesn’t charge completely overnight if not correctly plugged in. 

The next phone I purchase will either be a Lumia product OR i'll jump the Microsoft ship and switch to an iPhone.  If the Lumia has the same issues that I’ve had with the two previous Windows OS for phones; I’ll be an Apple customer and Microsoft will have lost this housewife to the evil Borg.