How to Update the software to Jelly Bean on a T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S2 SGH-T989

Updating the software on a smartphone goes against everything I preach about in my book. It is incredibly difficult for software developers to develop ways to upgrade an existing operating system rather than wipe it and install a new OS. However, management teams and software companies task them with doing this to accommodate their customers, which are many times against the customer's best interest. However, mobile phone companies are resistant to wiping smartphones and just installing a totally new OS as customers want their contacts, pictures and such readily available. Therefore, we are stuck with very dangerous procedures to apply updates to our smartphones.

Searching the Internet for procedures and software to update an old smartphone can be a daunting task. I found a multitude of articles and YouTube videos about updating my phone to various versions of the Android OS in a variety of questionable ways. Many of those articles offered downloads without saying where they obtained the files or who created them. This made me worry about bricking my phone or loading a corrupted, virus-ridden update so I put together a strategy.

1.       Determine what my phone was currently running.

2.       Find out what the latest version my phone can be upgraded to is and understand the advantages and disadvantages.

3.       Locate the web page where the latest legitimate build, installation software and loading files reside, and download them.

4.       Put together a step-by-step procedure to update the phone and then give it all a try.

To see the information about what the phone is currently running:

Press the pancake stack lower left > select Settings > scroll down the bottom menu item and press About phone > There I see that my phone running Android version 4.0.4, Baseband version T989UVLl1, Kernel version 3.0.8, Build number IMM76D.UVLl1.

Now I searched the Samsung website and other sites to figure out to which version I could upgrade my phone to.  After viewing various YouTube videos, scouring web pages and such, I finally found the information I needed on Wiki which says Jelly Bean 4.2 is the latest version of the OS I can use.  (See:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_II, https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-3029) Before I get into updating the phone I wanted to learn about what Jelly Bean is, its advantages and disadvantages and so on... (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Jelly_Bean, https://support.t-mobile.com/community/phones-tablets-devices/android/samsung-galaxy-s-ii) Now that I have read all about all of the advantages of upgrading my phone and read the FAQ, I examined the requirements from Samsung to allow me to do so: 

•  A rooted device may cause updates to fail, unstable mobile phone operation, and/or other problems.
• It is recommended to use an official Samsung USB cable.
• Please fully charge the battery of the mobile device. 
• Please back up your data.
• Please do not open any menus by pressing any buttons.
•  Do not connect any other mobile device (MP3 players, cameras, external hard drive etc.) to the PC.
• You cannot use the call function.
• Please do not disconnect the cable until the update is complete.

Since my cell phone guru recommended that I root my phone months ago, this shows how you have to do your homework before updating of making changes to your phone.

Backup your Samsung Galaxy S2 SGH-T989 phone files

When you hook your phone up to your computer via USB cable you should see Windows display Installing device driver software lower right.  Unhook your phone > click on Settings > go into USB utilities, which will bring up USB mass storage, click on the Connect storage to PC, this should bring up the Connect USB cable to use mass storage dialog > connect your cable and the phone and your computer will present all the files on the phone via Windows Explorer. In my case, all I had to backup was the DCIM > Camera and Thumbnail files. Actually, I just moved them off my phone to a USB drive so my phone would be ready for future pictures.