Although programmed for a January update to Windows 10 Mobile, phones running on Windows 8 will stick with the old OS until February, Microsoft recently decided.

VentureBeat was first to report on the news, after receiving an email from Microsoft.

The Redmond-based company informed all of its partners of the decision via email. Microsoft noted that delays are in store for the second monthly service update for the Lumia 950 XL and the Lumia 950. Last month, a less than stellar update landed to the flagship smartphones carrying Windows 10 Mobile.

According to the report, the rescheduling announcement does a few verbal pirouettes that basically translate to "we are not ready to deploy the update just yet." Microsoft assures that both the legacy handset upgrade and the service update will reach Windows 10 Mobile users until the middle of February 2016.

The Windows developer will deliver the software improvements when the time is right and assures its partners that quality assurance is the reason behind its decision.

To enforce this point, Microsoft lets users verify if their Windows 8 Mobile phones will play well with the latest mobile OS. That is why the company released Upgrade Advisor, an app that analyzes your Windows 8 Mobile handset and lets you know how advisable it is to switch to Windows 10 Mobile.

Moreover, the Upgrade Advisor app helps users clean up enough storage space on their devices to make room for the new Windows 10 Mobile.

First, the app suggests which files can be easily removed to make room for the latest Windows Mobile OS. Photos or videos, for example, can be easily relocated to an SD card or to Microsoft's Cloud storage service, OneDrive. Then, users choose the files that they deem worthy of keeping, saving or deleting the rest. Once they finish installing Windows 10 Mobile on their device, users can restore the files that they saved into OneDrive.

Currently, the Upgrade Advisor app is still in beta testing and therefore not available for download.

Last month, Microsoft pushed out a new update for the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL flagship handsets, only to go back on the decision and retire the update.

In a short time after the launch of the update, Windows 10 Mobile users started seeing errors on their handsets. Some got peppered with storage notifications while to some the update refused to load or got stuck at 0 percent. The problematic update even forced some users into resorting to the mobile world's final solution: to them, a hard reset was necessary to restore full phone functionality.

There is one upside to this situation for owners of Lumia phones. When the February updates land on the handsets, they will receive not only the latest Windows 10 Mobile build straight on, but the service update, as well.

Windows puts a lot of effort into making its premium smartphones attractive, but the competition with iOS and Android devices is an attrition war. We suspect that the delayed updates will not please the existing Lumia owners, and their frustration will add up to unhappiness that signals from Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book clients.