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Consumer Vista Upgrades Moving at Snail's Pace
Chester Freeze writes "During the holiday season, many shoppers bought PCs with the promise of quick, free Vista upgrades. The reality has been something else entirely: many Dell and HP customers are being told that they won't receive their copies of Vista before April. 'One source at a major OEM who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the real issue is that OEMs are still not sure which PCs are really ready to support Vista, and which PCs aren't... Customers who qualify for an Express Upgrade also qualify for OEM support for Windows Vista, even if their machines came with Windows XP. The last thing a Dell, Gateway, or HP wants to do is start sending out upgrades to customers who might have video cards that do not have particularly stable drivers yet (or sound cards, or RAID controllers, etc.). This could be a support disaster.'"
I upgraded 1 computer in my company (my friend's one, didn't work with XP, hardware problems). After everybody saw it, nobody wants it anymore. Especially after problems with installation of few crucial programs (ie. Acrobat Reader 8, but 7 was fine). And those people use IE and think that Windows is the only operating system.
Plus windows didn't detect 3 different USB memory sticks. They simply didn't work. But USB mouse and keyboard are fine...
I've seen enough. Bells and whistles are not enough for operating system to be successful.
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
Vista will run just fine on older hardware. I have a 4-5 year old 2.8GHz P4 with a 256MB nVidia 5700 video card and it runs Aero and Vista Business just fine. You can repeat lines like this "...Vista for an upgrade on a machine that's more than a year old and can't run it?" all you want but is no more truer than the first time you said it. Sure, there are some video cards that are a year old that can't run Aero but not running Aero is a vastly different thing than not running Vista.
You guys really sucked for forcing people to totally wipe their computers when all you needed to do was uninstall the Winmodem software (I assume that's what these junkers were), delete the USR infs from %systemroot%\inf, reinstall the software, and reboot. Clearly, those INFS were still hanging around.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
What is the major draw of upgrading to Vista?
The features include:
A lot of these features have been on other OS's for quite a while, but they are welcome additions to Windows for people who are used to them on other platforms, but need to use Windows occasionally. In a year or so once it is stabilized and third parties have things together, it will probably be an improvement on XP
I've been trying to get ahold of the upgrade for my copy of XP Pro I got when piecing together a system for myself. Not that I plan on installing it in the next year, I just don't want to have to pay for it if I do have to test or use software with Vista. The upgrade offer ends in March, I believe, so I'd like to get the disk... but it's been a MAJOR pain working through the third party that Microsoft has been using to get the Vista upgrades.
p x
Quick info on sites and phone numbers to use:
https://upgradeweb.moduslink.com/vista/default.as
This is the rather buggy ASP website that is used to request an update.
I had to contact Newegg for a coupon code to use for the upgrade, but had ASP errors on trying to use the page, so I had to call this number several times:
1-800-817-5602
The folks there are nice, but a mixed bag - they're throwing Microsoft/Moduslink employees there at a rapid pace, with little training. When I asked for an upgrade to a higher level of support, they had no one to send me to - but they were rather cool and honest about the situation despite the confusion.
At the end (thus far), I'll have to send a printed copy of my Newegg reciept to an address to get my upgrade. Don't know what kind of recourse I'd have if they just denied my upgrade request... the whole process has really been more painful than I expected, even with Microsoft support, even with fairly friendly folks to help me through it.
Ryan Fenton
Not only does it make them the hero, it makes a LOT of business sense.
How much did the upgrade cost? Refunding that cost per user is cheaper.
Consider what they will spend on call centers, refunds, lawyers, engineers...
this is only going to get WORSE for the next 2-3 years, depending on how fast
MS gets their act together, and we all know what that means.
In the end it's Dell's image that suffers... their main product is noob support.
If they can't even manage to get a working OS on their new boxes, who wants it?
Corporate clients? Nope. Home users? Nope. Gamers? Nope.
I just hope XP support and patches don't fall by the wayside because of this idiocy.
It's the only version that's even REMOTELY a viable option right now, flaws and all.
I was all ready to mod you up solely for the fact that you used the phrase "couldn't care less" correctly, but sadly, you were already at +5 insightful.
An instant +5 Interesting post template. Who knew...
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Then they've already prepared for this. IIRC, all those free Vista upgrades being given out were for Home Basic. Dell comes through on their promise for free Vista upgrades in the cheapest, yet technically correct sense possible.
Yea, I fully admit we did. The main problem was that none of our "techs" were trained. Also was bad management.
At Stream, we were paid BY THE CALL. It was more cost effective to tell the customer to reinstall, and then call back than to spend 15-20 mins to remove the inf drivers manually. All the while the management pushing for us to have a 15 minute call time. Sure, I might have the skills to bring back a system after getting corrupted drivers and being malware infested, but trying to tell a customer how to do it? Or better yet, teaching a tech who English is a second language and doesn't even own a computer to help a customer on this issue? Reinstall is far much simpler.
I really think this is what makes tech support so bad. Not only do you have to know how to do the job, you also have to act as a teacher. Atleast I got a free Windows 98 OEM disk during my 6 month jaunt there.
Why not just stick with XP?
Who exactly is forcing you to upgrade, to Vista, Apple, or anything else? I've felt no pressure.
Also I don't get the logic. Apple releases a new OS every year for you to buy, MS, 5 or more. Ultimately, you'll be out the same amount (well, a little more) with the Mac upgrade cycle.
Why do you feel so much better about needlessly tossing money to Apple than to Microsoft. This, I don't understand about the "switcher" mentality.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This was once a valid factor. Today it is not. With Ubuntu, you can get the entire OS AND all the hardware drivers and applications you need installed and auto-configured in ~30 minutes, most of which is spent watching the progress bars. Upgrading all of your existing software, or adding a new app, is generally an under-one-minute process.
Ubuntu utterly demolishes Windows on required maintenance effort (about as close to zero as you can get). The Windows software installation process of "run an .exe, go through a wizard and accept all the defaults, wait, wait, reboot" seems horribly archaic in comparison. I'm not too familiar with OSX, but I suspect it's between the two, and probably closer to the Ubuntu side.
They are doing everyone a big favor. Vista's upgrade process is absolutely not robust enough yet for the average consumer.
...could mean, oh, your audio hardware is having some issue, or it could just mean you have 4GB of RAM (See KB929777), or any number of other things.
Last weekend, I spent two days upgrading to Vista on a machine that was just purchased in October. I did succeed in the end, but it was not without a considerable amount of hair-pulling.
The essential problem is that if ANYTHING goes wrong, the upgrade suddenly becomes a non-consumer-friendly train wreck. The most painful thing is that there are any number of small hardware problems that can cause the boot to blue screen. If the boot blue screens, Vista tries to boot again. That is, you end up in a boot-loop. The blue screen does not stay up long enough to read it. So, anyone debugging the problem needs to learn about the F8 menu, where they can request that the machine not reboot on boot failure. THIS time. Then, you have to look at the blue screen, and hope that it's something that'll give you SOME clue as to what's wrong. After all...
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
Vista WILL NOT FINISH INSTALLING until you have done at least one clean non-Safe-Mode boot. However, it WILL NOT allow you to use Safe Mode until it has finished installing. So, there is no way to remedy any problems (short of yanking hardware out of your machine) unless you boot off of the install DVD, and go into the command line tool there. However, you cannot get to the command line tool directly. You have to ask for it to do a Repair first. However, Repair hangs on some machines. (Man, I wish I was making this up.) So, you may have to cancel out of Repair, just to get to the command line.
None of the three distinct problems that were preventing my upgrade were detected at all by the tool that was supposed to determine if my machine was Vista compatible. Not a single one of them. So, I had no idea where to start looking for problems.
Okay, now imagine your typical first-level tech trying to guide a consumer through this swamp.
They can't. This is not something that can be realistically handled by first-level customer support. Moreover, the "just do a clean install" line that Microsoft has been feeding to anyone who contacts tech support REALLY isn't going to fly with people who were told their machines would be ready for a Vista upgrade when it became available. They have already been using their machines, and they expect a smooth upgrade -- not a clean install.
These companies have a vested interest in making sure that the Vista upgrade process is not going to blow up in the faces of their customers. Because their equipment is very consistent, they face a situation where it's either going to be a disaster for everyone, or it's going to run smoothly for almost everyone. The stakes are very high for them to get this one right. The cost of botching it up will be phenomenal. So, give them some time. Let them get this one right. Or, their poor customers are going to find yourself with your machine torn apart all over the floor, gnashing and wailing, like I was. Upgrades should never be this hard.
Please, tell me how Vista is good?!? I mean, (aside from the networking stack), all you get is XP+DRM+bugfixes and a new UI (although that is still clumsy).
Oh, and did I mention that driver revocation was put into effect? So when Microsoft finds out your brand-new $400 24-inch LCD is "leaking" precious content, goodbye $400 monitor!! Plus, you're only allowed one major hardware switch...
OK, so put in perspective for a university, assume you upgrade your hardware every five years and have a standard monitor, graphics card, etc. Suddenly, some hacker somewhere breaks into that graphics card somewhere in the world and Microsoft finds out about it. Poof! All of your graphics cards are rendered entirely useless, because Microsoft can't have them leaking the precious "premium content," even if millions of people will no longer have functional cards.
The driver revocation was why I switched to Linux (and have never regretted it).
And finally, even if you get a VERY good academic price (let's say something entirely absurd, like $20/copy), you are still spending $20x120=$2400 on the OS alone for upgrades (not to mention the new hardware).
"All you need is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." -- Mark Twain
One of the other things that makes tech support bad is that you're constantly understaffed, yet your Boss may be the type to want you to "keep good relations."
I have had stints with my company doing PC support - and even though I can still do it, I don't want anything to do with it. Why? Well, the end users are nice enough, but when you have 2 people to 1000, it kinda sucks when things start piling on.... I'm talking repairs, deployment, fixes AND moves, adds, changes (network and phone) as well.
That's why PC support sucks. They'll cut it down just to the point that someone will quit, and then trim no further. All the while the users are complaining that they didn't get their equipment in a reasonable time etc - but they won't pony up the $$ for another tech because "we're incompetent (sp?)" I never want another piece of doing computer tech work.
Karnal