How to update your Orange UK HTC Hero to Android 2.1

I was pleased to see the news that Orange and HTC have finally gotten their act together and have released an update to the Android OS running on the HTC Hero.

If you’ve found that your phone has not prompted you to do the update, the following guide may help.

I called Orange technical support this morning and they gave me these “official” instructions to update it over the air (OTA):

1. Make sure your phone is updated with the latest firmware from HTC (2.73.61.5) If not:
   • Go to the HTC Hero Orange support page, making sure you’re on the UK site.
   • Download the update, connect your phone to your computer and follow the instructions.
2. On your handset, go to Settings -> Date and Time and uncheck “Automatic” to stop it using network provided values.
3. Set the date to some point in December 2010.
4. Exit to the home screen.
5. Get yourself on a wifi network - you’re about to download a lot of data!
6. In a few minutes a notification to download an “update to the updater” will appear – follow the instructions. The phone will then restart.
7. In a few minutes a notification to update the  Android software will appear – just follow the instructions. The phone will then restart.
8. You now have Android 2.1 on your HTC Hero.

I’d recommend being on a wifi network when you do steps 7 and 8, because you’ll end up downloading about 100 megabytes of data in total.

As usual, backup your phone before doing all of this!

I followed these instructions this morning and my phone is now happily running Android 2.1.

I hope this proves useful for any other Orange HTC Hero users – please do comment below if you’ve got any further suggestions or tips related to this.

Update: According to Geoff Mansfield – you need to be on firmware 2.73.61.66 not 2.76.61.5. I updated from 2.76.61.5 but it’s worth bearing this in mind if it doesn’t work for you.