No Windows 8 upgrades on Afrihost or Axxess in SA

Microsoft doesn’t register Afrihost and Axxess’ new MTN-supplied ADSL network as being in South Africa

Jan Vermeulen

October 26, 2012

Afrihost and Axxess ADSL subscribers complained on social media channels such as Twitter and the MyBroadband forums today (26 October 2012) that they were unable to download their upgrades to Windows 8 Pro.

According to the reports, the Windows Upgrade Assistant is not letting users download the new version of the operating system, giving an error message that it is unavailable in their country.

Microsoft SA announced earlier this year that the Windows 8 Pro digital upgrade for $39.99 would be available in South Africa, and users on other ISPs have reported successfully downloading the update.

Although Afrihost said that they don’t have a definitive answer from Microsoft as to what is happening, they have logged the issue with them.

There is speculation that Microsoft is not seeing IP addresses from the Afrihost and Axxess networks as from South Africa.

Afrihost Windows 8 upgrade tweet

Both Internet service providers recently switched from using Internet Solutions to MTN as their upstream provider for ADSL services.

From Afrihost’s tweets to customers complaining about the issue, they also suspect a geo-location problem. However, an Afrihost spokesperson told MyBroadband that whether it is related to IP ranges has not been determined.

“We do know that there are several people around the world experiencing similar issues,” Afrihost said, referring to reports from users in Switzerland and Denmark that receive the same error message as users in South Africa.

“We will inform all our clients as soon as we have a solution or more information on this issue,” Afrihost said.