Hamilton HTK need upgrade or CC won't work starting June 17

[Blanco]

Thought id share. Got a call from Hamilton today. My HTK is about 5 years old running windows 8. Apparently windows 8 is discontinued and the HTK's that have it need to either do a hard drive replacement for about $300 or buy a new controller for $2300 in order to accept credit cards past June 17. Date set by world pay. I ended up doing the new controller because it was the last pay station I had with a ingenico card reader (also discontinued). You need the new controller for the ID Tech readers. Didn't wake up today thinking I was going to spend 4K before noon but it surely never ends.

So if any of you guys got HTK with windows 8 it's only about two weeks until cut off. Give Hamilton a call if they haven't contacted you yet.

 

[OurTown]

Windows 10 was released 10 years ago. Why was Hamilton building HTKs with Windows 8 five years later?

 

[Blanco]

Windows 10 was released 10 years ago. Why was Hamilton building HTKs with Windows 8 five years later?

That’s a great question. I didn’t know that.

 

[Keno]

Windows 10 is also nearing EOL, hope they're not charging an arm and a leg for windows 8 to 10 upgrades

 

[Blanco]

Windows 10 is also nearing EOL, hope they're not charging an arm and a leg for windows 8 to 10 upgrades

It's $300 for hard drive upgrade or $2300 for controller upgrade.

Something about the "sockets" that process CC info is the reason for upgrade now that there finally shutting down 2 1/2 years after EOL. Beyond my pay grade.

This time I did the controller but I expect in few years to only have to do the hard drive. But who knows.

 

[Roz]

The Hamilton DAN system uses Windows 10 too. We had to upgrade our DAN from version 7 to 10 last year.

Just a heads up that the IDTech cc reader has some issues too. You will need to have some patience and check the machines regularly.

We upgraded our two Goldlines to new doors to get the new IDTech cc readers in 2024 ($6K each door). We are about to receive our sixth reader after many have died for no reason in one year. At least they have been under warranty. The give away is when the reader says Tampered. No way to reset it. Needs to be replaced. Hamilton is at a loss as to the cause as is IDTech. A bit frustrating for sure as each episode costs us lost business. Cash works but the downed cc reader disables wash codes and the scanner from working properly too.

Wish hardware manufacturers would not lock their systems to one cc processor/hardware as switching should be easy.