Mobile operators won't be able to help immediately either, he said, because they're unable to revert phones to their original image. While operators could offer to send phones back to the manufacturer, it's unclear if they will. "It is up to the mobile operators as to what they want to do with your phone," he wrote.

However, he noted, Walsh thinks he has created a way to get the phones back on an officially supported path, and Microsoft will work with him to validate the solution, Watson wrote.

While Walsh on three phones that were updated using his tool, more than 140 comments had appeared on his blog by midday Wednesday from people saying they were unable to get the security update. Most complained of seeing a specific error code when they try to download the update.

Walsh, who lives in Australia, that he would provide a solution tomorrow. "The fix is quite simple really," he wrote in the blog post.

The IDG News Service