What a timewaste!!
OK - here's how to fix that wretched breathing-magenta annoyance:
Install the toolchain (takes, like, 3 hours...) Toolchain for Windows Installer
Download the firmware: Releases · particle-iot/device-os · GitHub
Put photon into DFU mode (press both buttons, release reset, then release setup when it start flashing yellow)
Install http://zadig.akeo.ie/ and the DFU USB driver: Tutorial: Installing DFU-Driver on Windows [24 Feb 2015]
re-flash everything thusly:-
dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -s 0x8020000 -D system-part1-v0.4.4-rc.2-photon.bin
dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -s 0x8060000:leave -D system-part2-v0.4.4-rc.2-photon.bin
dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -s 0x80E0000 -D tinker-v0.4.4-rc.2-photon.bin
dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -s 0x80A0000 -D tinker-v0.4.4-rc.2-photon.bin
(nb: those last 2 are different)
it will probably still not work, so, re-flash it all a second time:
dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -s 0x8020000 -D system-part1-v0.4.4-rc.2-photon.bin
dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -s 0x8060000:leave -D system-part2-v0.4.4-rc.2-photon.bin
dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -s 0x80E0000 -D tinker-v0.4.4-rc.2-photon.bin
dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -s 0x80A0000 -D tinker-v0.4.4-rc.2-photon.bin
then set it up (might need to press setup for 3secs to get blue flashing):
photon serial wifi
And yay - good to go.
you might also need to fix your path under cmd.exe
PATH=C:\Particle\Toolchain\MinGW;C:\Particle\Toolchain\MinGW\msys\1.0\bin;C:\SparkCorePrograms\dfu;C:\SparkCorePrograms\Git\bin;C:\SparkCorePrograms\GNU Tools ARM Embedded\4.8 2014q2\bin;C:\SparkCorePrograms\GnuWin32\bin;C:\Users\Main\AppData\Roaming\npm;C:\Particle\Toolchain\Make\bin; C:\Particle\Toolchain\GCC-ARM\bin;