Hello John,
The upgrade is a function of product ownership, and as such is communicated to product owners via the facilities accessible through the purchase link. When you make a purchase, you are informed of the following:
This download link will be available to you for a maximum of 180 days from time of purchase, or for a total of 15 downloads. This download link will also serve as your upgrade path to [PRODUCT NAME GOES HERE] CD-ROM ISO Image updates and fixes. Should you have any questions or problems, please contact Server Elements at sales@serverelements.com.The above would clearly state NASLite-2 CDD, USB or HDD and not NASLite-2 which is what has been available for sale over the last 5 years.
In addition, the page that you receive when clicking on an invalid link will provide a first possible explanation as follow:
1. Your download link is too old and therefore expired. Expired download links are automatically removed from the Server Elements download server. Expired download links cannot be used for free product downloads or upgrade discounts. Which should sufficient to inform you that our commitment to support an old product is over.
Although, I do understand what you are saying John. I think that we may have contributed to the confusion by allowing folks to download the NASLite-2 product against a NASlite-2 HDD, CDD or USB purchase instead of keeping all those separate as originally intended.
At any rate, we'll try and do better in the future.