Windows 7 has been out for quite some time now, and Lenovo customers who purchased a laptop within a reasonable amount of time from the date of Windows 7’s launch were supposed to get a free upgrade from Lenovo.
Well let me tell you that this is not at all what happened. Lenovo hired out it’s upgrade process to Mentor Media Ltd., a company which specialises in, “…cutting edge supply chain management services to customers in many different industries.”
Mentor Media Inc. has been unresponsive, withholding of contact and order information and generally irresponsible throughout this process. For example, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone to contact regarding your order on the Lenovo Windows 7 Upgrade page. When you place your order, they do not include your order number in email communications with you. They don’t send you any emails except the one confirming your order. A few weeks ago I received an email stating that even though Windows 7 had been out since October 22nd in stores, it wouldn’t be until late November that Lenovo customers would see their orders.
Then nothing happened – and now it’s December 2nd, 2009. I’m still waiting for my copy of Windows 7 from Lenovo and Mentor Media Ltd. I wouldn’t mind if the upgrade were truly free, but I’ve paid $40 for “shipping” for this item. That’s practically the price of a piece of software to start with – for just a disc! If all I receive in the mail is a disc I’ll be upset. You don’t charge customers $40 to ship an item that should have come with their system. I purchased my system right before Windows 7 was launched. It would have been installed if I had waited a week.
So I called Mentor Media Ltd. by checking the website associated with the root URL of the Lenovo Windows 7 Upgrade page. Upon answering, I was asked for my order number. Of course this was on a piece of paper I printed out over a month ago. Thankfully the lady was able to look up my account. I was told that my credit card had been indeed charged the ridiculous shipping fee already and that it should be shipping soon – but that Lenovo had sent out a message to her company saying that it would not honour IdeaPad Windows 7 Upgrades until mid-December!
I asked her when this message got to her company and she told me a week ago. When I explained to her that the responsible thing for her company to do would be to email IdeaPad owners and let them know about the extended delay, she hung up on me – the rotten wench.
So here I am bitter because my MSDN version of Windows 7 is expired on my laptop and my desktop has been replaced with a black screen. The corner says my copy of Windows 7 is not legitimate. Funny, it seems the offer of Windows 7 for free from Lenovo was not legitimate at all.
[edit 2009/12/03]
I’ve just received the first communication since early November from Mentor Media. They’ve sent me an expedited parcel via UPS. So I’ve still essentially paid $40 for a copy of Windows 7 1 month after launch – a copy that should have come with my laptop, but it’s still on it’s way and that’s good, right?
[edit 2009/12/03]
ONTARIO, CA, US 12/03/2009 4:00 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN
It’s coming from Ontario, going to Ontario, it’s only a CD and it costs $40 for “shipping”? Yes, I’m still upset about this.
[edit 2009/12/04]
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 12/04/2009 1:56 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
ONTARIO, CA, US 12/03/2009 7:19 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
Hunh? Okay so maybe UPS’s site is just awful. It seems the ONTARIO, CA, US location is moving up the list just underneath of wherever else it’s been. Either that or it started right beside me and got delivered the the United States before coming back to me in Ontario. Either way, something’s very wrong here.
[edit 2009/12/07]
So I remembered someone telling me about an Ontario in the US – so I had the wherewithal to look it up this morning and yes, there’s an Ontario in California. That makes a bit of sense because shipping of anything from the US seems unreasonably expensive.
[edit 2009/12/08]
I’ve finally received the discs. Two discs came, one containing an upgrade version of Windows 7 which seems to work for fresh installs. The second disc contains drivers for a few models of IdeaPad notebooks, including the one I bought. Everything works, and I haven’t received any insane brokerage fees… yet. Only the $40 to have two CDs mailed to me in bubble wrap via UPS from California. 😐
This is all Lenovo’s fault. Everyone wants to outsource for cheaper prices, but the consumers who pay the “cheaper” price lose out becasue of terrible quality control and no corporate responsibilty/accountability.
They are a JOKE, I ordered my upgrade on Oct 21, 2009. I have not received it as of this Date. I have called the support site and they know as much as I do; NOTHING. I was assigned a SPECIALIST and have heard from her one time. That was about 10 days ago. What a DISGRACE for LENOVO.
It’s interesting but disheartening to see some of you have it worse than I do. I remember the Windows Vista upgrades taking a long time to arrive from some companies and it seems that it hasn’t become any better. Perhaps the issue is that Lenovo made custom discs instead of just forwarding on regular upgrade ISOs. So their team working on Windows 7 Upgrade discs probably took too long to get some models pushed out.
It’s a shame.
[edit] I think the actual Windows 7 disc is stock, but they include a disc with it that has a few models of IdeaPad drivers on it.
Same info on a thinkcenter 230 desktop
Paid $17 for upgrade that should have come with computer ordered in Dec.
Waiting to see how lone it will take to get it!!
Wow, in December you’d think it would have been pre-installed. I assume this is an off-the-shelf unit? I see you’re commenting from work. 😉
The problem still doesn’t seem to have improved. I purchased a Lenovo IdeaCentre K230 that shipped with Vista Home Premium on it. I ordered my Windows 7 upgrade disk from MediaMentor on January 15 and e-mailed proof of purchase that same day. As of today, February 1, 2010, the MediaMentor website says my order is pending proof of purchase. By way of contrast, HP is using a different fulfillment company. They mailed my Windows 7 upgrade disk within five days of my original order and proof of purchase. MediaMentor is either woefully incompetent, woefully understaffed or both.
I am going through the same deal now. I ordered the $17.00 free update on 1/27 & trhough 3 calls to Lenovo’s Tech support have been advised that the disk has or is shipping. I have had to involve Lenovo to get every step of the process from POP verivication to getting the disk shipped.
Now (2/12) I have a UPS tracking # but UPS sites says no tracking available.
My Lenovo IdeaPad Y450 has been a very sturdy machine without any parts physically breaking on me until now.
I noticed my machine was running hot and games would cause random triangles to appear on the screen, then the program would exit and Windows would tell me the video driver had crashed.
I suspected there might be something wrong with the thermal pads used at the factory, and I was right. They were completely dried out and crusty even though the laptop was purchased in late October.
So all I did after the disassembly was to add a bit of the standard white thermal grease to the processor, chipset and GPU after cleaning them all off and the contacts on the heatsink.
Thankfully my laptop is back to running cool and quiet, but having to fix this at all is a bit odd so soon after purchase.
I have been promised since August the Windows 7 upgrade disk would be coming shortly. Repeated calls to Lenovo support resulted in additional promises in September, October, November, December and January. When finally in mid January I asked for a supervisor, I was told I had to submit another application even though I had the Lenovo registration number from the first submission. So I submitted an application and agreed to have my credit card charged. The application required that I submit a scanned copy of the proof of purchase, even though they had the registration number, the model number and the purchase date on their records. I reluctanly complied and sent another application. As my scanner was down, I attached a PDF copy of the original purchase order. Here is what I got in a response email from:
noreply@mmedia.mis.com.sg
” This is a final reminder for you to submit your Proof of Purchase by 5 March 2010 and your payment by 15 March 2010 for your order of the Windows 7 Upgrade kit.
Your order will be cancelled automatically if we do not receive them by the above mentioned dates.”
It is clear to me that they have no intention of sending an upgrade and apparently never had any intention of upgrading. They just constantly throw up artifical roadblocks in an apparent attempt to blame the customer for failing to comply with their requirements.
If anyone has the ability to organize a class action lawsuit against these crooks, consider me a participant.
I have two Lenovo laptops. I can assure Lenovo that they will be the last Lenovo products I will ever own.
This is the *LAST* Lenovo product I ever buy.
MentorMedia has charged my card for the $17.00, but I’m getting the same email as Robert mentioned, that my order is going to be cancelled unless I send them my proof of purchase. I’ve actually gotten this email (3) times now in the past couple days.
Despite MAILING, FAXING, and SCANNING/EMAILING my information to them, after sitting on hold and discussing everything over and over again to MentorMedia support staff, who have no clue what they’re doing.
At this point, I just don’t know what else they want me to do! After everything I’ve done, I think the only way they’re going to believe that I bought a Lenovo is if I mail them the damn computer.
I just can’t believe that there wasn’t something Lenovo could have done to make this upgrade process easier. They should have initially given us something to send in for the sole purpose of qualifying for the upgrade! –> i.e., when you purchased it, you get an ‘upgrade certificate’ with all of your system’s information/requirements, proof of purchase information, etc.
Never buying Lenovo again.
I have been waiting for 4 months with no communication from Mentor Media concerning my order.
My proof of purchase was approved right away in December 09 and my credit card was charged right away.
Totally ridiculous.
After all of these complaints I’m somewhat surprised to go back to the Mentor Media website and see it still intact.
I guess you certainly can keep a company afloat by taking people’s money and not delivering them anything for a while.
Have all of you guys launched a complaint with Lenovo? I wonder what they’re doing about it?
After a bunch of runarounds, back and forth, Microsoft support just gave me a windows 7 pro product key.
Been working fine since then. downloaded win 7 from microsoft.