Windows 10 phone -- Need help setting up replacement phone

[Muse]

Bought this Alcatel Idol 4S Windows 10 phone in January of this year to replace my old Microsoft 640LTE Windows 10 phone, whose headphone jack stopped working. I restored the 640LTE's latest backup to the new Alcatel phone. A month ago the Alcatel's touch screen started working very erratically and I sent it in for repair 2 weeks ago. Received the "repaired" phone yesterday and it appears to be simply a new replacement (has different IMEI).

I turned on the replacement phone today expecting it to act like a new phone and ask me language, etc., i.e. the same stuff you get when you do a hard reset but that's not what I got. Instead, it booted into Windows 10 with its own home screen.

I've connected to my wifi network.

I have a Microsoft Account, and have a fairly recent backup (July 26, IIRC) of the replaced Alcatel. But AFAIK, this replacement Alcatel doesn't know of my personal Microsoft Account.

What should I do?

1. Hard reset the phone and go from there?
or
2. Sign into my Microsoft Account and restore my backup from the previous phone? If that, how do I do that? I don't see where I can sign into my account or restore a backup.

TIA for help.

 

[quikah]

I would reset it, who know what weird stuff might be on there. It is strange that they sent you a phone like that. Are you sure it is not just your phone image?

Otherwise, you should be able to go to settings > Accounts to add your account. Not 100%, I haven't used windows 10 mobile in a year.

 

[Muse]

I would reset it, who know what weird stuff might be on there. It is strange that they sent you a phone like that. Are you sure it is not just your phone image?

Otherwise, you should be able to go to settings > Accounts to add your account. Not 100%, I haven't used windows 10 mobile in a year.

I'm not sure. The home screen looks nothing like mine. First thing I did before turning it on was slip in my SIM and SD card. Then I turned it on, expected it to act like a perfectly new phone but instead it went to a home screen. None of my apps are there and I don't see my apps in the list of apps. Obviously, I have to restore my backup but I'm wondering if I should just reset the thing first. That would be easy, I know how, I did a reset around a month ago trying to fix the touch screen issue.

Don't see where I can sign into my account the way it is, but if I reset the phone it will ask me to sign in.

 

[Muse]

Found where I can sign into my MS Account and I did. Mysteriously, I was asked to sign in again, dunno about MS sometimes, the behavior there is hell of whack.

Well, still don't see where I can restore from the backup, maybe I have to reset to get that option.

Now that I've signed into my account I have a bad feeling that I will need to turn off reset protection to reset. I had to do that a couple times before. It involves getting a key via email and entering that at my MS account page. Still don't know if I should or shouldn't reset. Their info with the new phone says contact them, "call" but they didn't drop the phone number there. I may call them, don't know how helpful they'd be.

 

[Muse]

I'm on the phone with an Alcatel tech support guy. He's not really familiar with Windows Phone and he's putting me on hold. The question is:

Is it necessary to reset the Alcatel Idol 4S Windows 10 phone in order to restore one of my backups from Onedrive?

Edit: He's unable to understand, maybe. I ran that question by him 1/2 dozen times. He tries to show me where to find info on the phone, has me to to MS Store and My Library, and there appear just 10 of my 50+ apps that I can download. It just seems the easiest way to deal with this is reset/restore. Can't find out if there's any other way to restore a backup.

 

[Muse]

I reset it. When I did, I saw something I haven't seen before, which is the option to delete all provisioning. Evidently, this phone had special provisioning set up, presumably to accommodate some specific entity's requirements. I elected to delete that, figured it could only screw me up, who knows what it was. It's restoring my 8/2 backup, which I initiated via Backup Now. There's one from 8/9, that was automatic AFAIK. They are probably pretty much equivalent. Thing with MS Phone Backup is, you have to name each backup differently if you don't want your backups overwritten. That's especially important if you have automatic backup on. I guess if you want to make a backup that won't be over written from time to time, you do a Backup Now and give it a special name, such as Backup8-15-18.