On Monday, Microsoft rolled out its first major software patch for Windows Phone 7 devices. Unfortunately for Samsung Omnia 7 users -- and others -- the update rendered their devices useless, forcing Microsoft to pull the update.

Yesterday, in the spirit of transparency, Microsoft answered a few questions to shed light on the problem.

First, Michael Stroh pointed out on the Windows Phone Blog that 9 out of 10 people installed the software update without any problems. Of the remaining 10 percent that did experience a problem, almost half failed because of a bad internet connection or insufficient computer storage space.  

As for those Samsung Omnias, Stroh had this to say: "We’ve identified a technical issue with the Windows Phone update process that impacts a small number of Samsung phones. We’re working to correct the problem as quickly as possible. But as a precaution, we’ve briefly suspended updates to Samsung phones. We are continuing to update other Windows Phone models as scheduled."

After installing the patch on an Omnia, the handset attempts to reboot but gets stuck on the step where it's supposed to connect to the PC. This begins an endless cycle of rebooting, while a hard reset yields no results and connecting to Windows Phone 7's PC recovery suite yields a "Restoration Error".

For non-Samsung WP7 users preparing to do the update, "make sure your computer has an Internet connection and plenty of disk space before you begin. Why? Because before updating your phone, the Zune software and Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac attempt to back up your phone data as a precaution," Stroh writes. 

If you have not yet received the update notification, Stroh says it will be coming within the next few days or weeks.