[jsooney]

My 1520 has gone stupid on me, not sure what's wrong with it. I think I need to do a hard reset or maybe use the recovery tool, but I need to back up a few things first.

Is there a way to back up to local media? I don't use the "cloud", so that's not an option.

[Harrie-S]

My 1520 has gone stupid on me, not sure what's wrong with it. I think I need to do a hard reset or maybe use the recovery tool, but I need to back up a few things first.

Is there a way to back up to local media? I don't use the "cloud", so that's not an option.

You can backup photo's, music, documents etc on your pc.
But not apps and settings.
If you don't use the cloud you need to manual download your apps and "create" your start screen etc
To make it easier to reinstall apps you can go to The Smartphone Reinvented Around You | Windows Phone (United States) and login with your ms account you use on your phone.
There you can see which apps you had on your phone and can give the reinstall "command"

[jsooney]

Thanks for the quick reply. I know I can copy the stuff you see in Explorer when you plug into your PC, but what about contacts?
I can redo my apps and settings that's not a big deal. Still, I'll be a bit depressed to lose my Dream League Soccer team, it took ages to get them where they are.

[Harrie-S]

Your contacts are stored in the cloud if you use a ms account (same as your calendar)
So if your use the same ms account again than the contacts will be downloaded on your phone again.

[jsooney]

So even though I've never set up the cloud stuff it still backs up my contacts?

[Harrie-S]

So even though I've never set up the cloud stuff it still backs up my contacts?

Yes it does.
As soon as you have a ms account you also have a "cloud".
And you "need" a ms account otherwise you can not update your phone or install games.

[jsooney]

Seems you're right, all my contacts are there, which is kind of disturbing. I did everything I could think of to make sure nothing went to the cloud, but I guess it wasn't enough.

[bmetelsky]

The cloud isn't all bad.... I pretty much just use it for contacts, emails, photos, and texts. I can access on my phone or on my pc.

[jsooney]

The cloud isn't all bad.... I pretty much just use it for contacts, emails, photos, and texts. I can access on my phone or on my pc.

I know it's convenient, but I find it highly annoying. At no time did I tell this POS that it could copy my contacts, and yet it did. That's messed up.

[anon(123856)]

If you created an Outlook account then it does indeed store your calendar and contacts in "the cloud". Rather than call Windows Phone a "POS" perhaps you should consider the fact that you created the account without understanding how it works. You can go to Outlook.com and login using your phone credentials and view what's there. Keeping some of your stuff on the Outlook servers makes performing a hard reset much easier.

[jsooney]

I was aware that it stored the calendar stuff in the cloud, that was annoying enough. Do I really need an email to tell me something that my calendar already told me? No, obviously not. I created the Outlook account because you have no choice, how else are you going to get apps. I have never turned on the backup feature, and never loaded or updated OneDrive, so why should it back up anything. If you ever read the ToS you wouldn't be happy about it either. Well, maybe you would, who knows.

[EndOfRope]

Hello,
you are right. I also don´t want to store anything in the cloud. With my old symbian Nokia it was really easy, there was a good pc suit. Now i have not the complete control over my own data. Thats sad but true. For me it´s a step back as it was already possible a decade ago. MS is not going to sell me any cloud service this way. Other phone manufactures are not better, so it´s not only MS to blame.

A way to get your contacts out of the phone without cloud is with bluetooth. You can transfer them to another phone and the back to yours. It´s only a workaround but i don´t know of any other solution.

[Harrie-S]

A way to get your contacts out of the phone without cloud is with bluetooth. You can transfer them to another phone and the back to yours. It´s only a workaround but i don´t know of any other solution.

But the OP already has and ms account so his contacts are already in the cloud.
Your workaround can be used if you do not use a ms account on your phone.

[her3814]

Well I'm aware that almost anybody doesn't read the ToS ... But there is specified everything, included this "problem"..

[jsooney]

Hello,
A way to get your contacts out of the phone without cloud is with bluetooth. You can transfer them to another phone and the back to yours. It´s only a workaround but i don´t know of any other solution.

As Harrie-S said, after I zapped my phone and logged into my MS account they just showed up , didn't take long. It's still annoying though. I guess you really don't have much choice but to hand out everything about you to the data gods these days. You'd think you could at least make them pay for the information. It would be interesting to know what they do with it and who they share it with.

[jsooney]

Well I'm aware that almost anybody doesn't read the ToS ... But there is specified everything, included this "problem"..

I was really bored once and read a fair bit of the OneDrive ToS, it was quite an eye opener. Basically they say the data in the cloud is yours, but not really. It's like those privacy statements you get from credit card companies and banks which essentially say "you don't have any privacy".

[jsooney]

But the OP already has and ms account so his contacts are already in the cloud.
Your workaround can be used if you do not use a ms account on your phone.

Thanks for your help, everything is back to normal. Well, other than my Dream League Soccer team, that's going to take time.

[gMaesterUK]

Sadly all modern smartphones use the cloud in some way, others (Android) are more wanting to know more about you to sell advertising, however it's not in Microsoft or Apples interest to do what Google does...

G.

[jsooney]

True, there's nothing you can do about it. I'm just amazed how compliant and unquestioning people are.