UK upgrade fiasco

P

pogo

Junior Member
I bought my copy of Parallels last year from amazon.co.uk. It's been fine up until now - the original installation (build 1940) worked fine with the activation key supplied on the back of the printed manual booklet. It upgraded to 3188 without any problems too.

So last night I forked out another £27.52 for the 4124 upgrade - they took my money no problem, and even sent me an activation key. The activation key is even accepted fine too ... but the activation dialog won't accept the *original* key now.

So I gave up on the idea of trying out Half Life 2 (not that I had the option) and mailed the support folks - and to be fair to them I got a reply this morning. Unfortunately the reply basically told me to be patient and wait for the localized version to be released.

So. I'm £27.52 out of pocket and my Parallels installation is broken.

At the moment I'm none the wiser as to when I'll get a working UK version of 4124 - more questions to the support bods, but I guess they're pretty busy right now so I shouldn't hold my breath.

Pity. Up until now I've been well impressed with Parallels, but I'm beginning to think they're taking the piss a bit. If there was something on the "buy now!" page that told me to wait for the UK version I'd be happy, but there isn't, and I'm not.

Come on Parallels, what are you playing at?

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
 
There's a lot more on it on this thread

I cannot beleive they are still ripping people off with this scam, even though they have been contacted about this issue by a lot of people

I gave them the benefit of doubt that they were merely incompetent with their sales plans. Parallels US, Ananquest UK and element5 have all been contacted about this, yet they are still letting it happen.

It is doing the company no favours at all, after all the people getting ripped of are loyal customers eager to upgrade to the latest product. :mad: :mad: :mad:
 
Ripoff

After a day of standard email replies (one was quoted verbatim on the other thread you mention!) and cluelessness I'm totally f*d off with Parallels. They're totally taking the piss.
 
There's a minor update to Parallels Desktop available for download from here

Right now it deals with UK upgrades. Other localizations are to follow shortly.

Best regards,
Tim

PS: It takes time to assemble and validate the local versions. But we're definitely giving them out in two weeks timeframe
 
does that mean that my version is not running because i´m based in germany?????
element 5 sent me the activation key without mentioning it!!!!

regards
uwe
 
Tim Surgent said:
There's a minor update to Parallels Desktop available for download from here

Right now it deals with UK upgrades. Other localizations are to follow shortly.

Best regards,
Tim

PS: It takes time to assemble and validate the local versions. But we're definitely giving them out in two weeks timeframe
Click to expand...

How does this one work?

Can we upgrade our UK versions with the upgrade key that was supplied from element5?

You need to give detailed information Tim, to avoid more unnecessary screw ups.

Thanks,
Mark
 
Bsod

The new download has finally let me activate. Two BSODs so far (that's just with starting up Windows and letting the Parallels Tools upgrade themselves, hmph)... why do I feel like I'm part of a beta program?

You announce General Availability and forget that there's more to the world than the USA. This is frankly disgusting, and I'm not going to make the same mistake of parting with any cash on future upgrades until you lot have sorted out your international support and there are a lot of people saying "yay, Parallels have finally got their heads back out of their arses!"

You can't go saying things like "it takes time to build the internationalized versions" AFTER you've announced GA. Sure, you've reacted swiftly and fixed things (for us in the UK - what about Uwe in Germany???) - but really - who do you think you are? This sort of information should be PLAINLY VISIBLE on the DOWNLOAD SCREENS *before* anyone is forced to part with their cash. You can't expect to mess people about and then say (in a remote forum somewhere miles away from the big "BUY NOW!" button) 'of course this is all normal practise'. You're messing people about. People who buy upgrades are REPEAT CUSTOMERS. That means we've been happy with your product. Is this any way to keep people happy?

I hope there are a some pretty swift maintenance releases coming up once the dust settles with this mess - you've obviously rushed this out the door and paid the barest minimum lip service to your international customers. Your product is brilliant, but your attitude towards customers is cynical, if not downright dishonest. Frankly right now your company deserves to fail. I think this would be a pity, but right now I have >this much< respect for you.

Very disappointed indeed.
 
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:)

Hi all!

Not sure about this problem. I'm in the UK and bought my Parallels direct from the Parallels store when it first came out last year.

When the special offer of the version 3 upgrade was emailed to me, I paid up, waited until the 7th, downloaded the new version, entered my new key and all is fine...

Is it just the retail versions, perhaps? I've been quite happy with this release. No problems.
 
Banging my head against a brick wall

pogo said:
The new download has finally let me activate. Two BSODs so far (that's just with starting up Windows and letting the Parallels Tools upgrade themselves, hmph)... why do I feel like I'm part of a beta program?

You announce General Availability and forget that there's more to the world than the USA. This is frankly disgusting, and I'm not going to make the same mistake of parting with any cash on future upgrades until you lot have sorted out your international support and there are a lot of people saying "yay, Parallels have finally got their heads back out of their arses!"

You can't go saying things like "it takes time to build the internationalized versions" AFTER you've announced GA. Sure, you've reacted swiftly and fixed things - but really - who do you think you are? This sort of information should be PLAINLY VISIBLE on the DOWNLOAD SCREENS *before* anyone is forced to part with their cash. You can't expect to mess people about and then say (in a remote forum somewhere miles away from the big "BUY NOW!" button) 'of course this is all normal practise'. You're messing people about. People who buy upgrades are REPEAT CUSTOMERS. That means we've been happy with your product. Is this any way to keep people happy?

I hope there are a some pretty swift maintenance releases coming up once the dust settles with this mess - you've obviously rushed this out the door and paid the barest minimum lip service to your international customers. Your product is brilliant, but your attitude towards customers is cynical, if not downright dishonest. Frankly right now your company deserves to fail. I think this would be a pity, but right now I have >this much< respect for you.

Very disappointed indeed.
Click to expand...

I agree with you 100%

I am now faced with another fiasco due to incorrect information from the Parallels support team.

Robert Stewart from UK support told me
What you will need to-do is to contact Parallels at [email protected], you will need to request a refund from them for the version 3.0 of Parallels Desktop.

The reason for this is the US version of Parallels Desktop won't accepoted the UK activation key, then you can reinstall Parallels Desktop 2.x.
Click to expand...

Irene at Parallels then replied
Hi!

It comes out we cannot make refund from PAL
Try to contact to element5 or to annal your payment..(
Click to expand...

So I have requested a refund from element5................

Now, a day later, there is a download that will upgrade my Parallels. Knowing my luck I will soon get an email telling me my refund has gone through and my upgrade is cancelled.

Is this an acceptable way to treat your customers? :mad:
 
Success: Tim's minor update got me past the activation.

My setup:
- Original key: UK retail version (it says so on the box)
- Upgrade key: discounted key from parallels.com $39.95 obtained June 3.
- The minor update version is 4128.

Activation just asked me about the upgrade key, I did not have to type in the original key any more. I interpret Tim's remark as: the latest US version 4128 will accept the upgrade keys that we handed out last week in combination with UK original keys.

No bsods so far, it is busy installing the new tools version on Win-XP.
 
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I suspect this 4128 build is a quick hack to try and put out the fires - I bet the link doesn't stay live long. It shouldn't really be hidden away on a forum in the first place, but Parallels have obviously screwed up the whole international thing this time round. I hope they learn from it, cos there's no way I'm stumping up any more cash until they sort their act out and stop treating us like pillocks.
 
Yeah, mine's playing happily now - two BSODs in XP, but running fine with Debian, Ubuntu and Solaris 10. Just about to try Quake 3, and I'll give Half Life 2 a shot if I can find a copy in town tomorrow.
 
Fair enough. I'm happy to eat humble pie*. I've yet to receive any sort of apology from you guys yet though.


* that being said, it still says "Build 4124" in big orange letters on the download page. No word about the international upgrade versions being two weeks in the pipeline, or a 4128 version for the UK


FWIW Quake3 runs like a dream.
 
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