Those who purchased a Windows XP based machine between October 26, 2006 and March 15, 2007 were eligible to get a free upgrade to Vista via the “Express Upgrade” program offered by Microsoft. This program was started to help users that wanted a Vista based machine last year, when Vista was supposed to be released, to get a free upgrade. The program is now in full swing, upgrades are coming in late, they are error prone and some serial keys aren’t working.

Most of the problems seem to be centered on HP, Dell and Toshiba purchases, there is no word on how it is going with other manufacturers but if those are any example it’s probably similar across the board. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are going to go right and on time but there are plenty of problems with the program.

HP and Toshiba decided to outsource their upgrade program to a third party company, ModusLink which Microsoft has used from time to time. Dell is handling the program themselves but the results are about the same. Upgrade kits are coming in much later than promised and some serial keys are failing to validate.

Some users have been experiencing an interruption in the upgrade process whether it was handled by ModusLink or not. A user enters the COA (certificate of authenticity) number on the Express Upgrade website, if during the process the website goes down or the PC crashes, the number would fail to validate again because it had already been entered even though the application had not been finished. ModusLink says the system has been updated to correct this issue.

Even if the system is functioning correctly now, some users have been receiving Vista discs in broken cases or even the discs themselves are broken which warrants a call to the manufacturer. The manufacturer will tell you to talk to Microsoft, Microsoft will tell you to talk to ModusLink and Dell will just give you the customer service run around.

There is also the issue of a class action lawsuit that has been filed against Microsoft because some computers sold under the program are not able to run all the features of Vista, in most cases these computers received a copy of Vista Home Basic which lacks Aero Glass to be more compatible with “weak” systems.

Most people who filed for the Express Upgrade were eventually able to get it but if you haven’t there are several places to contact to aid you with it. My suggestion would to be to contact On Your Side but I make no promises if they will be able to help you or not.

Having said that, I would have never bought into the Express Upgrade program to begin with as 1) You get upgrade DVDs not the full version, 2) That makes it impossible to reinstall Vista without first reinstalling XP and 3) You cannot transfer that license to another PC at all.

All these people who went for the Express Upgrade might have been better off buying an OEM version of Vista Home Premium (which is what most of the upgrades are) for $120 and that’s worth the convenience of getting the full version, being able to reinstall Vista at your leisure and getting the ability to transfer the license (once). So not only is the upgrade program far far late and error prone but it’s also very limiting as to what you can (or is that can’t) do with that copy of Vista but hey, it’s free right but it’s so not worth it in my opinion.

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Related:

Microsoft disavows knowledge of Vista Service Pack 1

Forrester Researches urges companies to reconsider Vista upgrades

Living the Vista life without Outlook

Vista breaks system restore if transferred

PC Tools Spyware Doctor doesn’t support 64-bit editions of Vista

Entry was posted on Saturday, April 7th, 2007 at 7:09 am under Upgrading, Vista.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.