Almost given up on 3.0 upgrade

T

tharpold

Junior Member
I think it bad form to post customer service complaints in a tech support forum, but I'm pretty much at the end of my tether on this one and would welcome any help, with the hope that someone at SWSoft might pick this up; no other channel I've tried has worked.

I have been attempting since July 6 to get an activation key for Parallels 3.0, which should rightly have been sent to me automatically, or at the very least sent to me after my first email request. (I've now sent four requests; this posting represents I guess a fifth.)

I won't bore those of you here with the details, which *I* find boring at this point. The summary version is that I purchased a boxed copy of Parallels 2.5 -- which I *thought* was v. 3.0 -- at my university bookstore. (I require 3.0, as I need to migrate a Virtual PC machine from Microsoft VPC to Parallels, for use on my new Intel Mac. This was why I bought Parallels in the first place. V. 2.5 is useless to me.) On discovering that I had the older version, I duly registered my purchase and sent in a request via the customer support email for a free upgrade to 3.0.

Nothing. No reply, no acknowledgement. A week later, I sent another email, citing the first and the urgent need for an acknowledgement of my case. Nothing for almost a week after that, when I received a short email from someone in Customer Support apologizing for the "technical" delay and asking me -- in confusing terms -- for proof of my purchase, my 2.5 activation number, etc. I sent that in immediately, only to receive a reply that my email message could not be delivered (or so I interpret the cryptic error message). Two other attempts to send the information also failed. I'm not even sure if anyone at SWSoft even knows that I'm trying to get through.

I *want* to use this software, I *want* to be able to recommend it to colleagues and students at my university; I *paid* for this software. But I can't even get started, so abysmal is the uptake on SWSoft's end. Is there some super-secret backdoor that people here know about that I might use to get someone's attention?

I've tried to be courteous, but my patience is used up. In my 23 years as a Mac user, this may be the lousiest customer experience I've ever had.

TH
 
Mike:

I have also been emailing support and sales for a since last month to get a fourth V3 serial#. We had three copies of Parallels, and received an email with update#s for those. The last copy we just purchased from the Apple store in Chicago. I registered it, and have requested the V3 serial# numerous times, and my emails have been completely ignored.

We also are having problems with every one of our V3 installations since installing the last update. We get a Windows Blue screen error very quickly, and the VM reboots. I've been able to get one machine running by booting in Safe Mode, and installing the Parallels tools manually a couple of times, but it is not inspring confidence.

Any help with getting our fourth serial# and information on problems with this latest release would be sincerely appreciated.

Sincerely,
Lee
 
Purplish said:
I will send you a Private Message with some ideas.
Click to expand...
Why Private? Maybe there are others out here having the same problem.
I agree with his assessment of the support for Parallels.
 
I had the same problem getting the upgrade and made several phone calls and sent several emails as well.
It finally took some emails to higher level management at Nova Development to get some action. My final call directed me to someone in support who immediately emailed me the link to download and the key to register.

All in all, I am very disappointed in the lack of support. I've never had this problem anywhere else.

I am also disappointed in Version 3.0. Not up to expectations and it still won't play games requiring direct x 9. I just don't understand this since Parallels requires the windows xp install to have sp2 and sp2 includes direct x 9 support. This is a program that is what, three years old now, and Parallels is only supporting direct x 8?

If the upgrade wasn't free, I would have...
:mad:
 
On giving up and squeaky wheels...

Well, something fell into place, as I received the v. 3.0 activation key from Mike at Parallels within about an hour of posting my complaint. Thanks!

But, of course, nothing works out quite like it should. I've spent now about 5 hours total fiddling with my Microsoft VPC image, newly converted to Parallels, trying to get it work as it should. Lots of application hangs (that is, Parallels hanging), unexplained weirdness involving keyboards and mice, etc.. Finally ended up "repairing" my XP installation with my installer disk, which sent me back to pre-SP2 days. I'm now downloading and installing 60+ updates from Microsoft to try to get this all back to where it was. Well, I can say this: rebuilding one's PC with Parallels is faster than it probably would be with VPC...

Very unpleasant. I'm not sure if others have had this experience, but in my case, "converting" from VPC to Parallels has not been the easy trick that was promised.

TH
 
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