Came across the following article today.
Chicago (IL) - If you purchased a PC before January 30 and took advantage of the Vista Express Upgrade program, you know by now that this program is everything else but "Express". In fact, three of the five largest PC vendors in the U.S. have confirmed to TG Daily that - almost four weeks after the launch of the OS - no Vista Express Upgrades have shipped to their customers yet.
The Vista Express upgrade program appears to be causing headaches in all links that are involved in the supply chain - Microsoft's chosen upgrade provider ModusLink, PC vendors and consumers. Ken Walker, as senior director responsible for the Vista rollout at Gateway, told TG daily in a conversation today that "probably no Vista Express Upgrades have been delivered to PC buyers yet." This assumption was confirmed to TG Daily by two other large U.S. PC vendors.
The Vista Express Upgrade program was put in place by Microsoft to make the new operating system part of the Christmas buying season, while the actual software was not released until January 30 of this year. Most new PCs purchased during the holiday season qualified for this "Express Upgrade," which promised consumers - depending on the PC manufacturer - a convenient and free (or fairly cheap) upgrade to the new operating system.
Microsoft determined the rules of the upgrade, with the idea to outsource every step of the upgrade process to the PC vendor and the infrastructure provider ModusLink, which handles the sign-up and shipping of Vista Express Upgrades worldwide. In order to get the upgrade, PC buyers who qualify for the upgrade need to sign up online in what often has been described as a complicated and tiring process that could take more than 30 minutes to complete.
Recently, we have been getting emails from readers who told us that they have not yet received their Vista upgrade. It is quite apparent that users are getting increasingly frustrated in a situation where they expected to have a product on their doorstep on January 30 and it still has not arrived. The first assumption, of course, is that there is a hiccup or a delay in the supply chain, which, however, is not the case.
In fact, we were told by Walker that the Express Upgrade sign-up form states in the fine print that users should expect to see their Vista upgrade in the mail about eight to ten eights after retail availability of Vista. According to Walker, a substantial number of users have not noticed this fine print and begin shelling Gateway with questions about this issue - which, in the end, cannot be resolved by the PC vendor alone.
Here's why: When the Express Upgrade finally reaches the customer, it typically will consist of a regular Windows Vista copy as well as a companion CD that contains certain upgrades that need to go along with Vista on a specific PC. Walker told us that the Gateway companion CD will ensure core functionality of a system as well as Internet connectivity, which will allow consumers to download driver updates for their computer. For example, these CDs will include BIOS updates especially for lower end systems with 512 MB main memory and shared memory graphics cards (to limit the graphics memory to 64 MB and allow Vista to actually boot.)
http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/22/windo ... s_upgrade/
Homepage
Forum
Drivers
HMM
MTM
Feed
. In the meantime, we thank you for your patience.
