'Surprised' Microsoft reacts to Windows 7 upgrade snag
Offers customers option to download disk image after error stymies upgrade
By Gregg Keizer
October 27, 2009 06:31 AM ET
Computerworld - Microsoft executives yesterday acknowledged that they were surprised by the snafu that prevented some college students from upgrading their Vista PCs to Windows 7, but they said the company has taken steps to remedy the problem.
"I would say that the way that customers were taking advantage of the student offer was somewhat of a surprise," said Ben Bennett, director of Microsoft's Windows consumer global support group. "We didn't think there would be a large demand for upgrades from 32-bit to 64-bit."
The problem, which Bennett confirmed has been one of the leading issues Microsoft's support staff has faced since
Windows 7's launch last Thursday, popped up when students tried to upgrade a 32-bit version of Vista to a 64-bit edition of the new operating system. The copy of Windows 7 they had downloaded from Minneapolis-based Digital River -- which fulfills download orders for Microsoft's $29.99 Windows 7 upgrade offer available to students --
stalled with an error message when users tried to upgrade.
Microsoft does not support an "in-place" upgrade from 32- to 64-bit, or vice versa, on any edition of Windows 7. In a message posted to the company's support forum last weekend, a Microsoft support engineer said that the error, which appeared when the downloaded .exe file would not "unpack," was part of a "by design" process to block impossible upgrades.