Windows 7 upgrade delays infuriates HP,Dell

A lot of Hewlett-Packard and Dell customers have expressed their dissatisfaction jointly on the delays to the Windows 7 upgrades promised to punters who bought PCs from the hardware vendors earlier this year. Many computer makers had hopes to keep sales ticking over prior to the arrival of Windows 7 by promising customers an upgrade to the Vista successor. However, weeks on from that launch, HP and Dell’s tech support forums are flooded with customers complaining that the upgrade hasn’t been shipped to them till now. Microsoft’s hardware partners characteristically started a jazzy marketing campaign earlier this year, in a move to make the most on Windows 7 by offering a semi-free upgrade to the OS for customers who bought Vista-based PCs between 26 June 2009 and 31 January 2010. Surely the likes of Dell and HP were also keen to switch kit that came loaded with a controversial and increasingly obsolete operating system before Windows 7 soared up to sound the death knell for those machines. A glitch even here is that lots of customers who bought Vista-based computers with the knowledge that they wouldn’t be shackled with that OS for long are still awaiting their upgrades.

While some complained on still waiting for the confirmation mail from Dell to order kit, others were peeved on the failure that when logged in to win 7 upgrade site to get an upgrade kit, they got a shipment date of 12/04/2009. A lot of other customers similarly complained that Dell had failed to email customers about their upgrades.
Another Dell trader who bought a laptop from the vendor in August complained that he was being kept in the dark by Dell. And HP is also facing similar complaints from dissatisfied customers who haven't got their Windows 7 upgrades yet. The Windows 7 upgrade site seems to state that a product number is invalid in the case of some customers and this is really frustrating the customers.


In another development, Microsoft has sped up the launch schedule for Windows Mobile 7 to lower than a year after 6.5. The company is said to be set to launch a test program in early 2010 with a codename "Maldives". This will let smartphone makers check the mobile OS against their hardware quite early. Timing would be such that the OS would get to the shipping phones by summer where 6.5 was showcased this past winter. The new OS is chiefly expected to add a lot more touch-friendly interface that supports capacitive touch screens, allowing Windows Mobile its first native support for multi-touch gestures like the ones found in some Android 2.0 apps, the iPhone and the Palm Pre.