Many of the people who have bought Windows phones seek relief sooner or later. Sometimes this comes about due to peer pressure or the feeling of isolation, in other cases it is the frustration of the user interface or the realization that they can't run cool apps like Lumicall.
Frequently, the user has been given the phone as a complimentary upgrade when extending a contract without perceiving the time, effort and potential cost involved in getting their data out of the phone, especially if they never owned a smartphone before.
When a Windows phone user does decide to cut their losses, they are usually looking to a friend or colleague with technical expertise to help them out. Personally, I'm not sure that anybody I would regard as an IT expert has ever had a Windows phone though, meaning that many experts are probably also going to be scratching their heads when somebody asks them for help. Therefore, I've put together this brief guide to help deal with these phones more expediently when they are encountered.
The Windows phones have really bad support for things like CalDAV and WebDAV so don't get your hopes up about using such methods to backup the data to any arbitrary server. Searching online you can find some hacks that involve creating a Google or iCloud account in the phone and then modifying the advanced settings to send the data to an arbitrary server. These techniques vary a lot between specific versions of the Windows Phone OS and so the techniques I've described below are probably easier.
The user may not remember or realize that a Microsoft account was created when they first obtained the phone. It may have been created for them by the phone, a friend or the salesperson in the phone shop.
Look in the settings (Accounts) to find the account ID / email address. If the user hasn't been using this account, they may not recognize it and probably won't know the password for it. It is essential to try and obtain (or reset) the password before going any further, so start with the password recovery process. Microsoft may insist on sending a password reset email to some other email address that the user has previously provided or linked to their phone.
In many cases, the easiest way to extract the data is to download it from Microsoft live.com rather than extracting it from the phone. Even if the user doesn't realize it, the data is probably all replicated in live.com and so there is no further loss of privacy by logging in there to extract it.
An IMAP client will be used to download the user's emails (from the live.com account they may never have used) and SMS.
Install Mozilla Thunderbird (IceDove on Debian), GNOME Evolution or a similar program on the user's PC.
Configure the IMAP mail client to connect to the live.com account. Some clients, like Thunderbird, will automatically set up all the server details when you enter the live.com account ID. For manual account setup, the details here may help.
If the user was not using the live.com account ID for email correspondence, there may not be a lot of mail in it. There may be some billing receipts or other things that are worth keeping though.
Create a new folder (or set of folders) in the user's preferred email account and drag and drop the messages from the live.com Inbox to the new folder(s).
SMS backup can also be done through live.com. It is slightly more complicated than email backup, but similar.
On the top left-hand corner of the live.com email page, there is a chooser to select other live.com applications. Select People.
You should now see a list of all the user's contacts. Look for the option to export them to Outlook and other programs. This will export them as a CSV file.
You can now import the CSV file into another application. GNOME Evolution has an import wizard with an option for Outlook file format. To load the contacts into a WebDAV address book, such as DAViCal, configure the address book in Evolution and then select it as the destination when running the CSV import wizard.
WARNING: beware of using the Mozilla Thunderbird address book with contact data from mobile devices and other sources. It can't handle more than two email addresses per contact and this can lead to silent data loss if contacts are not fully saved.
Now go to the live.com application chooser again and select the calendar application. Microsoft provides instructions to extract the calendar, summarised here:
You can now import the ics file into another application. GNOME Evolution has an import wizard with an option for iCalendar file format. To load the calendar entries into a CalDAV server, such as DAViCal, configure the calendar server in Evolution and then select it as the destination when running the import wizard.
Hopefully you will be able to do this step without going through live.com. Try enabling the MTP or PTP mode in the phone and attach it to the computer using the USB cable. Hopefully the computer will recognize it in at least one of those modes.
Use the computer's file manager or another tool to simply backup the entire directory structure.
Once the user has their hands on a real phone, it is likely they will never want to look at that Windows phone again. It is time to erase the Windows phone, there is no going back.
Go to the Settings and About and tap the factory reset option. It is important to do this before obliterating the live.com account, otherwise there are scenarios where you could be locked out of the phone and unable to erase it.
Erasing may take some time. The phone will reboot and then display an animation of some gears spinning around for a few minutes and then reboot again. Wait for it to completely erase.
Keeping track of multiple accounts and other services is tedious and frustrating for most people, especially with services that try to force the user to receive email in different places.
You can help eliminate user fatigue by helping them permanently close the live.com account so they never have to worry about it again.
Follow the instructions on the Microsoft site.
At some point it will suggest certain actions you should take before closing the account, most can be ignored. One thing you should do is remove the link between the live.com account ID and the phone. It is a good idea to do this as otherwise you may have problems erasing the device, if you haven't already done so. Before completely closing the account, also verify that the factory reset of the phone completed successfully.
If you can identify any faults with the phone, the user may be able to return it under the terms of the warranty. Some phone companies may allow the user to exchange it for something more desirable when it fails under warranty.
It may be tempting to sell the phone to a complete stranger on eBay or install a custom ROM on it. In practice, neither option may be worth the time and effort involved. You may be tempted to put it beyond use so nobody else will suffer with it, but please try to do so in a way that is respectful of the environment.
Prepare the new phone with a suitable ROM such as Replicant or Cyanogenmod.
Install the F-Droid app on the new phone.
From F-droid, install the DAVdroid app. DAVdroid will allow you to quickly sync the new phone against any arbitrary CalDAV and WebDAV server to populate it with the user's calendar and contact / address book data.
Now is a good time to install other interesting apps like Lumicall, Conversations and K-9 Mail.
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