The Windows presence on mobile phones is miniscule, a single digit percentage. Lots of people and forums (including this one) offer help for Android or Apple OS use, but Windows help is harder to find. There is probably some information available if you look.

Is it too late to return the phone and get something else? I've never heard of a mobile provider that doesn't provide tech support for its phones, maybe you should consider changing that too?

Good luck.

FYI MrWhiplash: I could certainly give up on the phone because it only cost me $23, but it is generally working fine and a smartphone is pretty slick for me even without a seri clone. Also, Consumer Cellular supports several phones but also has a deal where it will send you a sim and minimally try to work with any GSM phone. And I don't think you can beat $40/mo for two phones; and they Do support their own phones and they answer their phones (although not instantly like they used to).

I can't help with Cortana other than to say it's similar to Siri or Google Now.

As for your email, who is your email provider? Do you have a Hotmail account (username@hotmail.com) or some other account? Incredimail is just "reader" that allows you pull multiple email addresses into one place. Microsoft has offered "Outlook" in a variety of forms over the years. The full blown Outlook was part of their Office suite and beyond being a reader offered contact management, calendars, and notes. There was also Outlook Express, which was a basically a reader. Today Microsoft offers Outlook online which is basically Hotmail with a new domain.

Why don't we start with the domain of your email account and see if we can figure it out from there. Don't post the user name, use the part after @.

Thanks mike, for thinking about the email issue. I just brought it up thinking that no set up of the cell phone to read mail might be hanging up the 'cortana' install. Indeed, it might be cool to read email on the phone.

My email has always been thru earthlink.net. I originally used Outlook Express with my my windows computers until I got a win 7 machine and was told Express wouldn't work anymore. I was switched to Outlook (I always had the full Office suite; and never bothered to learn other functions of Outlook).

I have no idea how Hotmail is involved except that perhaps it is connected with the fairly new 'Microsoft Account' that I set up in December after I got my new Win8 netbook and then just modified and began to understand while playing with this new smartphone.

I found that windows phones have a help team at www.windowsphone.com/en-us/how-to/wp-support?wp8. It turned out that the only thing wrong was that somehow, I had not moved 'us english' into first place in a pair of us vs british english. I believed that I had already done it.

Cortana showed up once I downloaded some us english extras or something.