If you bought a laptop at the end of last year, you probably qualified for a free Vista upgrade. We did and although it took 6 weeks to get the disc in the mail from our laptop manufacturer, we didn’t run into too many hassles. No so for a lot of people, according to PC World:

“I was told it would be an easy process,” says William Bond, of Tampa, Florida. But, he says, the process has been anything but simple. Bond purchased a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion desktop in November at Circuit City and is still waiting for his Vista upgrade disc from ModusLink, the company handling the program for HP.

Bond says he has been asked repeatedly for his proof of purchase. “I must [have] e-mailed, faxed, and mailed that proof of purchase five times by now,” he says, but ModusLink still hasn’t acknowledged receipt. “I’m exasperated,” Bond says.

The problem is being blamed on ModusLink, the company processing the upgrades for HP, Acer, Fujitsu, Gateway, and Toshiba. ModusLink in turn blames the laptop manufacturers, who were 4-8 weeks late sending the discs. Admittedly, its hard to mail discs that you don’t have. Still…it’s May.

Says ModusLink’s Pothier: “Is it possible customers have had to resend things and are still not happy? Yes, and I apologize for that.” She says ModusLink is doing the best it can to resolve issues with the “few remaining” people who haven’t received their Vista upgrade yet.

Are you still missing your disc? Let us know at tips [at] consumerist [dot] com. —MEGHANN MARCO

Outrage Continues Over Vista Upgrade Program [PCWorld]
(Photo: DanieVDM)

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