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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.'"
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
They haven't had qualms about that in the past. What's stopping them now?
Wizard Needs Food, Badly
On the other hand, it could be easy to mitigate for Dell..
Refund the money. Now. Be the first to say Vista is crap
and you won't support it until SP1, just like the rest of us.
Or, dive into the steaming shithole. Your choice.
I used up all my good Vista jokes on the last article! :-(
well, they sold it. Sort of comes with the territory. I know if I sold a promise to upgrade and received payment for it, I am pretty sure I am obligated to provide it! Sort by law I believe, although IANAL, so I could be wrong.
Clever or not, I got nothing...
Didn't MS say openly that every $1 of Vista represents $18 of NEW hardware? I think they did. So it's no surprise that there would be a lag. I'm sure that in by the end of the year, all PC's will be moved to Vista and once MS abandons XP the upgrades will fly off the shelf. I was in Staples today and the price for XP Home upgrades and basic Vista was the same. So if you're smart enough to read the box, why would you buy Vista for an upgrade on a machine that's more than a year old and can't run it?
I was working at an "experimental" call center. Place was called Stream and the client was Dell. The objective was to figure out if the customer had a simple problem or if one that required level 2 support. (Bit more complicated than that, but that's the jest) I was working there between the great Windows 95 to Windows 98 upgrade. It was miserable for ANYONE with one of those damn USR Robotics modems. It got to the point where we would NOT send out a replacement modem unless the customer did a complete reinstall, from scrach, not with the rebuild image. It also didn't help that most of our techs had a 75% turnaround in three months, couldn't speak English well, and that we told the customer we would call them in 48 hours to "help" them though the reinstall. Gezz. Thank god I work on Dell Servers now. Dell afford to piss off their consumer customers, but not their enterprise. PS - I remember the trainer telling me that Dell is for "quality" and would never sell a computer under $1,000. Even when he said that, I laughed. (1998-1999 was when he told us)
I upgraded to vista, but I have to disable my sound card in the device manager before rebooting or Vista will not start up. The sound card driver is provided by MS from Windows Update. Why would they provide a driver that crashes the system, and even alerts you that it is not made for vista?
I wrote about it here, if anyone cares.
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
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.
Mostly? Finally a Microsoft OS that can run 64 bit reliably, WITH 32 bit support.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
How about a lawsuit disaster? IIRC it's fraud if you make a material statement that convinces someone to make a purchase ("this machine will run Vista") and that statement is false. Hell, that's not only a lawsuit disaster, it's a criminal activity disaster too!
Believe it or not, some people are just brainwashed.
We had someone (not a techie, but a user with a silent L) verbally call Vista the "latest and greatest." (Personal aside, I want to find whoever coined that term and just beat them to a bloody pulp.)
Never mind we're having nothing but problems getting it working for them; they seem oblivious to this. (And no AV support until May...)
MS should just cut to the chase and call the next Windows what it is... "Windows Shiny Car Keys" *dingle, dangle* You like the new shiny, don't ya? Shiny shiny!
I bought a Toshiba A100-TA9 laptop, with the promise of a free upgrade. When I go to the upgrade site, after I select the country (Canada), I am presented with blank drop-down boxes to select the current version I have. I assume this is due to multiple language versions (English and French) in Canada. Email to support is entirely unhelpful.
At the beginning of January, the form was working, but the server would time out at the very end.
I know why people will give it up... DRM, or more specifically the hoops you have to jump through to install Vista. Many people are trying to not pay the license fee now, and Vista will only push them farther toward trying Linux. Hey, the price is right, and it does all that they want to do anyway, so now is the time to drop MS products.
Sure, businesses will still find the money and time to upgrade, but most of them will do a forklift upgrade with a business maintenance plan on the desktop machines. This is a luxury that home pc owners do not have. The only real choice is to switch or suffer the pains of upgrades, license fees, support issues, software headaches, and the continued use of an OS that is the malware hackers preferred target.
This isn't trolling or Linux fanboi-ism, just an observation of what I'm seeing in the general populace.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I'm not running an apple ; mostly because I have a pc right here in front of me so why pay more money. But is there any reason now NOT to run an apple? Microsoft would have done better to not release vista ; they're ensuring people hate them and try the competition.
If I were a shareholder, i would sell sell sell.
I think it's a safe bet to say every shareholder should short-sell before every major release of windows. They do this every single time. Hype it up, stock goes up, release it, disappointing everyone, stock goes down, holding pattern, start all over again.
---
SELL SELL SELL! | Sometimes I'm bored
Ace
It comes down to marketshare. Microsoft KNOWS they have the market share, and are FORCING users to seek their new Windows ME 2007 (aka Vista)...I'm not biting this time. And I will use my last professional dying breath to tell everyone to stay away.
I keep telling customers and clients to stay away from Microsoft. Their response is "What else is there?"
I spout off about 4 or 5 good, stable, and secure systems, including Apple. They tell me they are not graphic designers. I then tell them that I can't help them unless they think outside the MS box.
I am treating Vista like a plague. And everyone that has a lick of technological expertise should be on that bandwagon.
Brainwashed is EXACTLY what they are.
Time for Linux to step up to the plate. There is such a NEED for a "Super Wine" project to take a big bite out of Microsoft's ass.
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
The upgrades might be going at snails pace but every new pc being shipped is shipping with vista. It wont be long before there are more installations of Vista than Firefox.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I submitted for an upgrade waited weeks and weeks, and then sent an e-mail to the support email asking why I had not received it, and if I had somehow mad an error in the documentation and such that I had sent.
I got a reply that said "Thank you for submitting to customer service, your upgrade order has been cancelled per your request so that you can re-submit with the correct information."
So instead of verifying my order, they canceled it, and the page to do submissions are gone, and besides that the documentation said "no copies of this documentation will be accepted," but I had already submitted the documentation via physical snail mail. So I have essentially been SCREWED out of 200 bucks worth of software.
To put it mildly, I will never purchase Windows Vista, and I am sure the Pirate bay can help me get the software I was promised. I have never before had a request for information turn into such a fraudulent cancellation before, and since I already paid for it, I am not feeling under any obligation to purchase it again.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
Of course some people are having compatibility problems with their upgrades. This is no major surprise. Speaking as one who works in a large NIX shop (university lab), I must say that we've been evaluating Vista and I kindof like it. I still have a Mac and a Linux box on my desk, but I'm expecting us to support Vista by early '08. Also, I will say there is real pent up demand for upgrading both Windows and Office here in our shop. Windows users here are primarily fiscal admins, and I've had several ask me about supporting the Vista and Office 08. All the Mac users (me included) are looking forward to an Intel build for the next Office.
Vista may be having a slow start, but I think that within a year or so it will be a big winner. I like it (and I haven't had much good to say about Win since forever).
Please, lord, let it be this time... raise thy noodly appendage and smite they foes!
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Joe Sixpack doesn't upgrade his operating system. Joe Sixpack doesn't know what an operating system is. Joe Sixpack will move to Vista when he buys his next PC with Vista preinstalled. This really should come as no surprise.
Windows XP Home Edition offered the stability and other improvements of Windows 2000 rolled into a consumer oriented OS. Compared to Windows 98 and (shudder) ME it was a huge improvement for consumers so it's no wonder more people wanted to upgrade to XP. What does Vista offer? A series of confusing versions to choose from, required hardware upgrades for most, software compatibility issues for many, annoying as all hell UAC prompts, Windows Software Protection Platform that can completely lock down your system if it thinks your running a pirated copy of Vista and the list goes on.
I can't think of one reason I should upgrade to Windows Vista. In fact, XP is the last version of a Microsoft OS that I will run on any PC I own. I've switched to a Mac and I couldn't be happier. I've got Boot Camp installed to play the occasional game but I find I'm spending less and less time gaming so I suspect by the time games appear that are Vista only it will no longer matter.
The people with a 4 year old machine with those specs are in the upper 1% of PC owners. I know of no one with a one+ year old machine who isn't a high end gamer or code developer who already has 1GB or more on their machine. And you answered your own point vis a vis the video card. If that's the target for Vista upgrades then it's going to be a cold cold winter in Redmond this year. You'd be amazed I think at how few people will chuck $180 for a new video adapter just to run an OS for no other clear reason. You have got be subsidized by someone else if that's how you think.
With all of the logistical/upgrade/support problems in this release, Microsoft should change the Vista's slogran from "Wow!" to "Doh!"
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
I was compiling and running 64-bit apps in 1998. That's like listing "doesn't decapitate driver in the event of crash" in the list of safety features in a modern car.
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Again, as it has been pointed out clearly, if you promise something free upon purchase of something else that is not the same thing as simply offering to give something away for free, with a buyer beware, you get what you pay for.
Dell specifically offered to provide free upgrades to Vista for people who were buying Vista ready machines before the release, to get holiday sales.
We can assume that the reason really is the fact that they are shipping upgrades as fast as they can and the only folks who are going to be loud are the ones waiting. To suggest that they are really trying to hold off shipment until they can produce a disk with drivers that work for hardware they already certified as ready would be fraudulent (selling hardware they promise meets Microsofts criteria for whichever level of compatibility without it being true is a class action lawsuit, or a recall)
In any case the likeliest answer is that the release is less than 2 weeks old, we have had terrible winter weather over that time, and the number of people who idiotically were unable to wait to get a computer preloaded with their OS, probably is greater than expected, mostly because they have no idea what it really means to upgrade an OS, since its been some 5 years since there has been a major release.
An instant +5 Interesting post template. Who knew...
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Upgrade...
You keep using that word. I do not think that means what you think it means.
Question everything
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.
I pride myself on keeping old machines happily doing the day-to-day work of my business. My OS choices;
Linux (Debian)
MacOS-X
Windows 2000
And I see zero reason to upgrade.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Huh? MS has already released recommended specs.
It ran quite well on my old P4 2.6 GHz, 1 GB RAM and Geforce 6600 GT...
That is, far below what e.g. Dell has sold the past few years.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
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.
Ah, I see now what Microsoft meant when they said that Vista would create over 100,000 new jobs in the US and in Europe: Support desk jobs for the resellers.
Upgrade Versions of Vista are Poison.
Of course, this has always been true of Windows Upgrade versions, but not to the extent of Vista.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
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
Based on your comment, I truly can't tell if it's just satire, or you're being bloody serious!
.Net. I've heard numerous bad things about these apps running on Vista too. Why? I don't know; I'm not a programmer. I'm only telling you based on personal experience with my clients.
Right now, Vista is very bad for the corporate world being they often run custom web applications. Some of these applications haven't been updated yet to handle IE7. Then, you have applications that run on
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Vista will never be the trusted successor to XP, but right now, it's too soon to be recommending this new OS.
Life is not for the lazy.
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