A disappointing experience at the Microsoft shop in London

Eager anticipation

When Microsoft announced last year that they were opening a shop in Oxford Street in London, I was quite excited. We have a great Apple store in Westfield, where the products are on display, the staff are friendly and helpful, and you can iron out any technical issues. I thought a similar offering from Microsoft would be a great idea. Indeed, it would. 

Why I wanted to visit

I finally managed to get there a few days ago, after a meeting with colleagues about our presence at the forthcoming education technology event, Bett. I wanted to ask a few questions about upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10, and to look at their Surface Pro and Surface Go laptops. I’ve already seen the latter, and will be writing a review of it when I get the chance. I thought it was a wonderful device, but before buying one I just wanted to double-check that my information about a new version coming out next Christmas is correct, and also to look at what else is available.

As for the Windows upgrade, I’ve been putting it off for as long as possible because I find Windows 7 to be perfectly fine. Still, with Microsoft ending support for it soon, crunch time has arrived.

I wanted to find out if a free upgrade was still available. I know that officially it isn’t, but I wondered if there might be some special offer only available from the Microsoft shop, or from a ‘secret’ url on the Microsoft website. I doubted it, but you never know.

I also wanted to double-check that if there wasn’t a legitimate free upgrade offer that I needed to buy the full product but click on the “retain current programs” option when installing it, or whether there was an ‘upgrade only’ pack.

The actual experience

This is what happened.

The first thing that struck me was how loud the music is. I didn’t have a decibel meter on my phone unfortunately, but I do now. I am pretty sure that the sound level exceeded the levels in Holborn station and Piccadilly Circus, and they are loud enough. Let’s put it this way: I had a headache for two hours afterwards.

Because of the noise I decided not to look at any laptops. I’ll go to a department store instead, and possibly buy a different make altogether. It depends on what tempts me. Anyway, I asked someone who to speak to about a Windows upgrade, and they told me to go upstairs.

I approached one of the “helpers” and we had the following conversation:

Me: Can I speak to someone about upgrading to Windows 10 please?

Helper: You’ll have to wait an hour.

Me: I only want to ask a couple of quick questions. Isn’t there anyone available for a few minutes? I don’t have time to wait an hour now (I had to get to a hospital, as I was accompanying someone to their appointment).

Helper: You shouldn’t install it yourself, it’s too difficult.

Me: Too difficult?

Helper: Yes. Bring your computer in here. They can upgrade for free. Otherwise I can sell you the program for £120.

Me: Look, my computer is a desktop PC and weighs a ton. I can’t bring it in. Can’t you just give me a URL where I can download a free upgrade from?

Helper: What’s a URL?

Me: A website.

Helper: Oh, a URL. I’ll get someone.

He approached a lady working on a laptop, and she said she could help me, but just to give her 5 minutes.

Ten minutes later, she came up to us, ignored me completely, and said to him that she was going into a meeting.

He ambled around for another few minutes, and then came up to me and said he would help me. He went to a laptop and typed in “free upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10” -- presumably thinking that I hadn’t thought of doing this myself, or perhaps wasn’t capable of it. 

“The free offer has ended,” he announced. “Go to CNET.”

“CNET?”, I asked. “What, and that’s all legitimate is it?”

“Yes, it’s what I did.”

All in all, I wasted over an hour, making a detour to visit the shop and having my time wasted while there. All I had to show for my visit was information that I either already knew, or could have found out, and a headache.

What next?

Perhaps I was just unlucky, and that had I visited at some other time my experience would have been better, but I have no intention of finding out. I’ve managed to find out much of the information I needed, both from the web and asking a few acquaintances in the ed tech world. I’m still not 100% sure whether the Windows 10 installation will wipe all the other programs, but if it does I’ll reinstall them. It will be inconvenient, but at least I’ll have my data, and the licence numbers of the programs because I’ve made a note of them all.

As for buying a new laptop, I’ll buy it from somewhere else. And if I need expertise? There’s always the web.

I was so looking forward to visiting the Microsoft shop that I thought it would make for a great review. It’s a shame that I’ve had to write this one instead.

Microsoft says…

I invited Microsoft’s PR company Assembly to comment on the article above. They got back to me with a comment from the store team:

“We’re sorry that you had this experience in store and that we weren’t able to help you in this instance. Our customers are at the heart of everything we do and we appreciate the feedback as we’re always working to develop and improve the relationships we have with our customers and the community. Our Answer Desk at the flagship Microsoft Store in London is dedicated to help answer questions and attempt to fix devices free of charge, regardless of where the device was purchased.”