Text 18216, 114 rader
Skriven 2007-05-24 21:21:20 av Rich Gauszka (1:379/45)
  Kommentar till text 18215 av mike (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: Where is our Vista upgrade?
=======================================
From: Rich Gauszka <gauszka@-nospam-hotmail.com>

mike wrote:
>
> http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39834
>
> ===
> CONSIDERING THE widely held belief that the Microsoft Vista upgrade
> program has been an utter mess, we decided to test the system's
> abilities ourselves.
>
>

It's still a huge mess

< waiting for the kitchen sink to take the blame >


http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070510/tc_pcworld/131722

Julie Marto of Medfield, Massachusetts, purchased a Dell Inspiron notebook
running
Windows XP last October. Through a program called Express Upgrade, she was
promised a free copy of Windows Vista when the operating system became
commercially available. It's been five months since Vista went on sale January
30. Marto is still waiting and steaming mad. ADVERTISEMENT

"I've done everything I can to get my Vista upgrade including e-mailing a
request to Michael Dell himself," Marto says. She says she never received a
reply from Michael Dell.

Marto isn't alone. Since PC Worldoriginally reported problems back in March
with the Vista upgrade program, people have continued to send us e-mail and
post complaints to our community forums citing paperwork nightmares, Vista
upgrade disc no-shows, and long hold times when trying to contact vendors or
third-party companies handling the upgrades.

One company handling the Vista Express Upgrades, ModusLink, acknowledges some
problems persist, but maintains most customers have received their Vista
upgrade discs by now. Dell complaints have been filtering into PC World, but
can also be found by scanning the company's support forum.

In one Dell support forum a company representative offers an apology and the
statement: "As of April 30, we have shipped approximately 80 percent of the
upgrades. We expect the bulk of the remaining orders to ship by May 15, and all
scheduled orders to be shipped should be completed by the end of May, barring
any unforeseen additional delays." Root of the Problem

Upgrade problems began when consumers purchased a new PC late last year. That's
when computer makers enticed people to buy new systems preloaded with Windows
XP prior to Vista's release by promising a free or reduced-cost Vista upgrade
when the OS became commercially available.

When a PC was purchased, the new owner received a Microsoft Certificate of
Authenticity number. The upgrade process was supposed to be simple: When Vista
went on sale, all a customer had to do was visit a special upgrade Web site and
enter their COA number to confirm their eligibility to receive a Vista upgrade
disc in the mail. Finally, new owners were directed to mail or fax in their
proof of purchase (Dell, however, waived this step).

"I was told it would be an easy process," says William Bond, of Tampa, Florida.
But, he says, the process has been anything but simple. Bond purchased a
Hewlett-Packard Pavilion desktop in November at Circuit City and is still
waiting for his Vista upgrade disc from ModusLink, the company handling the
program for HP.

Bond says he has been asked repeatedly for his proof of purchase. "I must
[have] e-mailed, faxed, and mailed that proof of purchase five times by now,"
he says, but ModusLink still hasn't acknowledged receipt. "I'm exasperated,"
Bond says.

ModusLink, which is processing Vista upgrade requests for people who bought
Acer, Fujitsu, Gateway, HP, and Toshiba computers, says the company is very
sensitive to the fact that customers are frustrated. "We are doing the best we
can," says Christine Pothier, the company's marketing communications manager.

When PC World spoke to Pothier in early April she said the issues with handling
extremely large volumes of Vista upgrade requests had been remedied by hiring
extra staff. She now says that new issues are delaying shipment of some Vista
upgrade discs.

Pothier says the remaining delays stem from customers whose Vista upgrade
orders included a declined credit card (some PC makers made their customers pay
the shipping cost of the Vista upgrade disc), address changes, and incomplete
or erroneous shipment information. Dell echoed the same issues on its message
boards.

Initially, problems delivering Vista upgrades in a timely manner, Pothier says,
were because PC vendors were four to eight weeks late in sending ModusLink the
Vista upgrade discs. "We are just the middlemen here," she says. "There was
nothing we could do."

Vendors Tight-Lipped on Delays

HP declined to comment when asked about the delay, simply offering a statement
that it had issued on February 9: "During the past few weeks HP has received
e-mails and phone calls from many customers concerning the ordering process for
the Express Upgrade kit for Windows Vista. We are aware of these problems and
are working on an aggressive schedule with the fulfillment vendor and the
software product supplier to resolve these issues."

Richard Black, director of marketing for Acer, says most of the company's
shipping delays have been resolved. "There were some missteps on our side and
on Microsoft's and ModusLink's," Black says. "These are the kinds of problems
you do your best to resolve when you have to sort through hundreds of thousands
of orders in a matter of months," he says.

Says ModusLink's Pothier: "Is it possible customers have had to resend things
and are still not happy? Yes, and I apologize for that." She says ModusLink is
doing the best it can to resolve issues with the "few remaining" people who
haven't received their Vista upgrade yet.

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