Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Want #Mango #WP7 now? But your network connection is not immediately adjacent to your desk, or awkward to break. #PowerShell


Mango is now available, and there is a cheat that seems to bypass the “wait until Microsoft/Your Carrier” make it available to you.  Read more here: http://www.wpcentral.com/force-mango-update-early-through-zune-software
However the trick relies on disconnecting your internet connection within a few seconds.  This is fine and dandy if the cable is right by your keyboard, mouse and monitor, but not if it isn’t.
Obviously you can enable/disable the NIC, but Windows 7 (at least here) takes a variable amount of time to perform the disconnect.  Factor in UAC asking you for permission to disconnect then you have a bigger timing problem.
So a quick jump to the internet.  The following lines of code sort it out.
Firstly, start a PowerShell session (ISE or prompt), but with Run as Administrator rights to avoid issues.
Then use the line:
Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_NetworkAdapter | Format-Table Name, NetEnabled, NetConnectionStatus, DeviceId –auto
This lists all your network connections, (extract below)
Name                                       NetEnabled NetConnectionStatus DeviceId
----                                       ---------- ------------------- --------
<snipped>
WAN Miniport (Network Monitor)                                            6      
Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Server Connection     True       2                   7      
<snipped>
Identify the Device ID for your network connection.  In this case 7.
The following lines of code needs to run once only in your ISE session
$Nic = Get-WmiObject win32_networkadapter -computerName LocalHost -filter "DeviceId = 7"
Note that the number 7 at the end will need to be changed for your environment.
Then finally –
$Nic.enable()
or
$Nic.disable()
As you wish to switch your NIC on and off. 
So, having prepped all that, a quick click on linking on the Zune screen below
Followed by a click on UPDATE, and then immediately run the disable command, and Robert’s your mother’s brother.  When you click on the presented choice to download an update – don’t forget to enable your link again.
Note you may need to update teh Zune software, so you'll get a bit of this:
 
For a bit.


But then you should see an update offered, something like this.

7403 offered to user
7403 ready to download






Repeat until you have Mango installed

Enjoy!

3 comments:

James O'Neill said...

Nice Powershell tip,

Just a word of warning the
version numner in the screen shot is not Mango.
The full version for RTM is
7.10.7720.68
Check your phone and have a look in settings and if you have a version before 7403 it's a step on the way, but you may find you're not really getting the update.

Daniel Noakes said...

Great tip, certainly speeds up the switch. I cna also see other uses for this.

Thanks.

P Bryant said...

Thanks James, I should have made it clearer the shots were part way through the process. The phone was a vanilla Mozart with the early 2011 NoDo its and nothing since. So it took three cycles of updates, I was part way through when I blogged.

He third update, the actual Mango install, took over 5 hours as the download was so slow in the sticks :-(.

Still, done now, and working!