dkp said:
If you didn't get your new key when you purchased the upgrade it may have been lost in spam filters. That happened to a lot of people. In my case they landed in my junk filter, but I run the mail servers here and previously whitelisted Parallels using every address I've ever receive mail from.
Andrew has been very helpful here and may be able to provide some assistance.
dkp, I know you are trying to be helpful here. You have provided excellent advice to me from time to time and I do appreciate it. But, the fact remains that many of us who pre-ordered 3.0 from Nova Development STILL have not been sent our activation codes through email or snail mail.
I have called them three times, and sent an equal amount of emails requesting same.
The first phone call to them was rather unnerving, as I had to tell the customer service rep over and over that the release version was really out and posted on this web site. They refused to believe me and actually had some manager guy by the name of Brian call me to try to tell me the same thing. It was absurd!
I kept telling them "Hey, I'm staring at the stupid download button right now and it does in fact download 3.0!" They STILL didn't believe me.
Finally, I sent them screenshots of both the download page, and the opening dialogue box for the upgrade install.
I pre-ordered the upgrade on June 2nd. I called them the first time on Thursday, June 7th.
I haven't heard from them sense!
The good news? It made such a bad impression on me that I took a look at VMware Fusion over this weekend. I am forced to use many Windows-only proprietary apps for work, so creating a whole new VM and installing all of those apps again was a bit of a chore. The interesting part? The install was flawless (I have yet to have that happen with Parallels) and this is a beta release! They even have a tool that converts Parallels VM's to theirs, though I chose not to go that route.
So, while I am happy that Parallels exists, methinks it is about time that I jump ship. Parallels allowed me the opportunity to realize and convince my company that using a VM on a MacBook Pro 17" was not, in fact, the work of the devil. For that I am grateful.
However, the complete lack of customer support (I was dumb enough in my first few days to pay $29 and change for a telephone support call that did NOT result in a fix), apparent lack of respect for their installed customer base (the marketing method used to promote this upgrade was sleazy at best) and other issues have made the choice easy.
The final straw for me? People here in the forum posting personal and childish attacks on those who were angry and feeling like they got ripped off, or least used. dippyskoodlez and others here gone way out of line to insult people who dared to speak ill of the sacred cow. Were they angry? Heck yes! But so what? With few exceptions did I read anything other than anger towards the company, not any individual. And most of that additional anger was due to responses where the responder didn't bother to read the details of the original complaint.
And where are the forum mods?
For me it has never been a matter of price of the original purchase, or cost of an upgrade. But, come on, folks! Upgrades are supposed to fix things, not create more problems.
So, for me, the experience has cost me the original $79; plus one support call $29; plus the upgrade $39.95 (did I mention that I have already paid and still don't have my activation key? Yeah? Thought so).
Parallels, and most everyone here, I wish you well on your journey. But this is one "short bus" that I refuse to ride any longer.
