Win 7 upgrade notification

Danshevik,

Thanks for the update.

PRT940:

ravenneangelle:

Did everyone forget that the copy is free (not including possible charges to shipping and taxes)? And how high in demand this product is? I'm sure Dell is doing their best in getting it all out to us in time.

Really?  This is Dell doing their best?  Not having the software ready to go?  Not having a functioning tracking system?  Not providing a download link which would've been the easiest solution?  This is them doing their best?  When they knew Windows 7 was going to be in demand?  When they knew before the 22nd the names and address of the people who needed the upgrade?  When they had months to prepare?  Their best?  I don't think so.

You can call the Windows 7 upgrade free, but it's not like anybody was ever going to pay anything for it.  Dell had to offer the free upgrade or else their sales the last few months would've plummeted while people waited for Windows 7-based systems to become available.

I don't really see Dell deserving any slack here.  Maybe if they threw in a free copy of Office 2007 or something....

 

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I registered on 07 Sep and got the e-mail saying I will receive the subsequent e-mail about placing the order. I am still awaiting that e-mail, but on 04 Nov I stumbled on the link to place an order and pay £15 shipping and handling. I have now got an estimated ship date of 28 Nov. It better not move right! They had all the details from when we registered - I was expecting that as I had not received a payment request - the software would be with us by early November at the latest. A classic case of getting info together - and then not acting on it.

Also can I request that when moderators delete a mail, they highlight the actual words in the e-mail back to the poster that caused the deletion. It will only be through education that behaviour will change. This will be especially beneficial for contributors for whom English is not their first language.

Mine has now been shipped.....but I WAS getting nowhere...fast. Despite my very early registration (late June) and relatively early order (morning of 23rd Oct), I had crazy and ever fluctuating estimated ship dates reaching well into November - despite getting told by a Dell employee that they were operating a "first come, first served system". Totally untrue that was. In fact, on one forum I read of a guy who just recently (last week or so) BOUGHT his PC on one day, registered his tag at 3pm the same day, formalised/ordered it at the same time, and by 6pm that very day he had a shipped confirmation email. After finding that out I was quite literally seething...raging in fact. Then someone suggested I post on these forums, the official Dell Community forums....as several folks seemed to believe that it got things moving for them.

I never believed it of course, but I posted on a few threads over here, sent a couple of angry emails, stomped my feet, made a noise, the usual threats of never buying another Dell, threatening to regale folks of my experience on review sites and blogs etc etc. THREE HOURS after employing this strategy, not only I had been bumped up to 'shipped', gotten my confirmation email/tracking number....but I ALSO found that it was marked as 'Expedited' on the UPS tracking site. Now call it a coincidence if you like.....but I have my own theory on this. 

Suffice to say, especially if you have paid £15 for your "free upgrade", don't give them a moment's respite. You're well in your rights to give them the motivation they apparently need. Most of us only bought our machines as they were advertised as including this upgrade....so don't let them convince you that they're somehow being generous. They're not. In fact YOU kept them in business during a recession by buying a new PC when a new OS was due to be released. How many Vista PC's would have got sold otherwise?

Best of luck!

Danshevik:

Just alittle bit more info for you.

From starting installation to me writing this now has taken 1 hour 59 minutes. Ive read in other articles that installation takes from 2-8 hours and it depends on computer performance, this seems to be the case. To help you out a bit as a measurement, i use an inspiron 545 with 3gb ram and 2.5ghz  processor speed. Also, if you upgrade, id advise you clear your internet browsing history, and move large files to an external hard drive, and maybe uninstall large programs. If i did that I would have been looking at around 1 hour 30.

Ahaa, same PC as me. Only I got the Inspiron 545 with a Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33ghz, 4GB RAM and opted for a 1TB hard drive. So I should be looking at a similar timeframe to you. I've just used Revo uninstaller to remove most of the Dell bloatware and other unwanted shenanigans while I await my discs. I also just uninstalled Prince of Persia (the last one....from 2008) which was the only big program on it. The rest is just a load of DVD editing/burning softwares like ConvertXtoDVD, DVD Decrypter/DVDShrink, Virtual Dub and all that malarkey....so it should hopefully go sweet. I have another big drive installed that I put in myself, so I'm going to shift all my pics, vids, music, docs and all that kind of stuff over to that - then maybe go for the custom/clean format/install. But I'm tempted to do an in-place upgrade after reading your post.

Thanks....very informative, as was your info about shipping timeframes. I will rate your post with maximum stars.

slitheen:

Actually never used a dual layer disc in my life, I'm afraid. The most I use it for is to convert 700MB or 1.37GB AVI's to DVD format and burn to single layer DVD's using ConvertX's burning engine. But I can tell you that forums like AfterDawn are excellent for garnering such info, as are a few others. All I will say is that I have often ignored the traffic lights and let it go down past green a few times....and I still think the quality is good. It seems to use excellent compression trickeries. Do they all have to go on the one disc? Perhaps split the job between another dual layer disc? Or put so many on one dual layer and the rest on a single...or is it for one complete project you have to have on the one disc?

Yes Nero is poor. ConvertXtoDVD is my favourite piece of such software and has been for a while. Although I must point out that since I replaced all my DVD players in the house with players that play DivX/Xvid, and all have a USB port, I've not burned that many discs at all recently - I just bang an AVI or ten on a USB thumb drive and stick it in my DVD player....bingo. I've done a few for relatives here and there but that's about it in the last few months. Good luck with it anyway, I'm sure you'll sort it.

Thanks, cant say i know many DVD forums.  8.5gb discs usually get 2/3 'excellent' clips while 4.7gb only gets 1.  I just want to put the AVIs from my comp on as few discs as possible, and i want to find out how i can use the full 8.5 instead of about 1.4 or 2.1! Just a waste of money then lol. Did you read the post about the person complaining to a regulatory board (or whatever it was) about the £15 charge and the use of the word 'free'? They agreed with him/her and said that it was misleading, I think if more took such action Dell may well be forced to give alittle of charge back, especially seen as they simply could have provided a link to download it and then us having to enter the Service Tag of our machines.

Oh, speaking of Service Tag, there is nowhere in the installation where you have to input the Service Tag, nor at any stage does it say it is searching for the Service Tag for authentification, so make of that what you will!

LOL...ridiculous. Love a mod to explain why my last post was deleted. I can only assume that it was because I discussed avis and divx files. I wonder if they know that such discussions are not always in relation to piracy? And if they recognise the futility in deleting it while leaving every word of the same post in someone else's reply? But daft....huh? :/

Danshevik:

Did you read the post about the person complaining to a regulatory board (or whatever it was) about the £15 charge and the use of the word 'free'? They agreed with him/her and said that it was misleading, I think if more took such action Dell may well be forced to give alittle of charge back, especially seen as they simply could have provided a link to download it and then us having to enter the Service Tag of our machines.

Yes, I heard that they initially thought it sounded wrong. I must say, that was also my first instinct. I know Microsoft said they have left the OEM's to charge what they like, so I can't see them getting done on that score, but to advertise it to us as being free and then reveal later that tax, shipping and handling would be incurred...well that is naughty. Especially so when some countries don't get charged and others, with a history of being ripped off, do. Mmm, so they could yet be found guilty of taking people's money for no good and honest reason? Well I never. Funny old world, isn't it? Can't say I'm surprised, however.

but to advertise it to us as being free and then reveal later that tax, shipping and handling would be incurred...well that is naughty. Especially so when some countries don't get charged and others, with a history of being ripped off, do. Mmm, so they could yet be found guilty of taking people's money for no good and honest reason? Well I never. Funny old world, isn't it? Can't say I'm surprised, however.

Not really tbh, before i ordered my machine i talked to live chat and they said it was free, and i as i pressed he/she further they told me that i would have pay for it to be shipped  so it wasnt free!  However, there seems to be some bother over the amount, I know when i use Amazon p+p its nowhere near 15 quid, and ive had stuff shipped from the US, so i think Dell is trying to maximize its profit while also proclaiming to its customers that the £15 charge is a fair amount when in the high street it is significantly more.

Seems like you were pretty lucky with the time UPS managed to get you your parcel, Danshevik. Did you say three days from UPS entering the data into their system (i.e. before they have taken physical delivery)? Well mine entered into the system early this morning, and has just this minute gone over to 'In Transit' (i.e. picked up by UPS from Ontario)...but my scheduled delivery date for them to deliver it to my door here in the UK is the 12th...which is this Thursday. Mind you, the two weekend days could have played their part. Mine is marked as 'Expedited', too....which I presumed to mean fast tracked (as I complained in an email or two, I assumed I got bumped up to 'Expedited'). Did yours actually come on your UPS scheduled delivery day or did it arrive before?

Anyway, at least I know it is on its way now and I can relax a bit. By rights I should have made use of my Vista recovery partition on my system these past couple of weeks, due to a persistent problem I've been having, but I put it off knowing that it would be horrible to go to the trouble only to have to do it all again for Windows 7. So the quicker I get it the better. This has been the reason I've been so tetchy with Dell about it - well, that and seeing people who registered and ordered much later than me get theirs at least a week before me. But the light is definitely at the end of the tunnel now....fantastic!

I suppose I'll only be truly happy when everyone on this thread has their copy. We band of brothers. LOL

slitheen:

I suppose I'll only be truly happy when everyone on this thread has their copy. We band of brothers. LOL

Lmfao.

Yep, 3 days. Billing recieved on 3rd, delivered by the 6th. I was very lucky with the times, although by looks of things UPS workers work 24/5 or 7?. I didnt take much notice of the UPS scheduled delivery day im afraid.

Having some trouble with Ccleaner and removing some startup programs like sidebar though... It says Access Denied so how i get around that only time will tell! I expect your upgrade to be delivered by wednesday at the latest, monday at the earliest. With me the deliverys have always been super quick, my computer arrived earlier than expected (and at the crack of dawn), maybe for once ive just recieved the rub of the green, or UPS are a well oiled machine.

Unlike others....

I registered for my upgrade kit in August and was waiting for the confirmation mail from Dell as to when i can order my kit, but alas no email. I was frustrated and then tried to look it up here and then tried to login to the win 7 upgrade site and to my surprise, i found the upgrade kit in my cart. I completed the order process and i get a shipment date of 12/04/2009...., seriously???? 1 month even to ship it????

I am hoping that it would change.....

prashanthLinkedin:

I registered for my upgrade kit in August and was waiting for the confirmation mail from Dell as to when i can order my kit, but alas no email. I was frustrated and then tried to look it up here and then tried to login to the win 7 upgrade site and to my surprise, i found the upgrade kit in my cart. I completed the order process and i get a shipment date of 12/04/2009...., seriously???? 1 month even to ship it???? I am hoping that it would change

Don't worry, my mate, that estimated date will mean nothing - take my word for it. We all got an estimated date that was WAY later than it ended up being. Mine was 15/11/2009, yet it shipped last night, the 06/11/2009. Same has been the case for almost everyone who has either got theirs already, or for those who have had theirs shipped. I only wish you found this site sooner, so you could have found out about being able to order it sooner.

Dell are way out of order on this, as the FAQ *clearly* states that after Windows 7 became available on the 22nd Oct, those who pre-registered would get an email prompting them to go and formally order/checkout. Seems like no one at all got those emails. I was lucky enough to go on a thread on another site late on the evening of 22nd Oct, and saw that some guy had gone on the Dell Win7 Upgrade site and found it in their cart awaiting payment. From this word of mouth (that I helped spread on as many relevant threads across the net as I could find), as well as people just going and checking of their own accord, we all sussed out that we could order straight away.

I actually wondered last night about how many people like you were still sat waiting for the email to prompt you to checkout. After all, that is what you were instructed to do....so don't feel bad. It isn't your fault. My own theory is that in doing this, Dell are trying to lessen the demand....which is very naughty indeed if it is the case. But why else would they not send a simple email prompting you to go and order the discs? Some might point to the fact that they're getting £15 a go and that they're making money, but the truth of it is that only so many territories are being charged for shipping....and others are getting it free, so they're perhaps not making on it and they're charging easy targets like us in the UK to subsidise/offset their losses. Either that or plain old fashioned ineptitude is the reason we never got those reminder emails.

Also, many are finding their order status blank, right up to receiving their discs....so they can't track it - while others do find a tracking number. It is also hit and miss if you get an email letting you know that your order has shipped. Some do, others don't. So make sure you keep going back and checking your status.....a couple of times a day if you can. Don't be surprised if you see estimated ship dates change frequently, or disappear entirely for a few days...it has happened to most of us. In the end, hopefully sooner rather than later, they'll ship it to you.

Anyway, I very much hope you get yours shipped soon. Make sure you come back and let us all know how you go on, we like it when someone gets good news around here. Best of luck!

Danshevik:

[/quoteHaving some trouble with Ccleaner and removing some startup programs like sidebar though... It says Access Denied so how i get around that only time will tell! I expect your upgrade to be delivered by wednesday at the latest, monday at the earliest. With me the deliverys have always been super quick, my computer arrived earlier than expected (and at the crack of dawn), maybe for once ive just recieved the rub of the green, or UPS are a well oiled machine.

Do you have to remove them? How about using msconfig.exe and just stopping these programs from launching themselves at start up? (I'm assuming msconfig is still part of Windows 7, it's there is XP and Vista). Sidebar meaning Windows sidebar? Or did you mean Dell Dock? Also, see if 'Revo Uninstaller' (free) can help you get rid of any stubborn unwanted programs....perhaps that would have better luck? Could it not be something like UAC which is causing the denial of access? Those are just off the top of my head, if I think of anything more I'll let you know. Myself, I always post on a real techie sites....or on a Usenet group. The guys on these places always have the best advice. I'm far from an expert myself.

slitheen:

Do you have to remove them? How about using msconfig.exe and just stopping these programs from launching themselves at start up? (I'm assuming msconfig is still part of Windows 7, it's there is XP and Vista). Sidebar meaning Windows sidebar? Or did you mean Dell Dock? Also, see if 'Revo Uninstaller' (free) can help you get rid of any stubborn unwanted programs....perhaps that would have better luck? Could it not be something like UAC which is causing the denial of access? Those are just off the top of my head, if I think of anything more I'll let you know. Myself, I always post on a real techie sites....or on a Usenet group. The guys on these places always have the best advice. I'm far from an expert myself.

I like to disable and delete to make sure, makes startup much quicker. Plus Sidebar has no use for me. CCleaner has never had this problem before tbh, only now with W7. Might just need a new update to work with W7.

prashanthlinkedin, just make a noise on this forum, the Moderators will take note and your order will magically be pushed through and prioritised. The estimated shipping date is just their to fill the column in the Order Status, it doesnt actually represent anything. When my kit was shipped, the estimated shipping date was 11/11, even though UPS was telling it had shipped on the 3rd or 4th.