The following article describes my experience in dealing with Microsoft.  Essentially, they inadvertently decided that my operating system (the one that came with the machine when I bought it) was no longer valid and rendered my machine pretty much useless (so limited that even the tech support people had a difficult time helping me. )  

I posted it at Article Base.

You can read more about it here:

http://www.articlesbase.com/operating-systems-articles/a-monster-lurks-in-redmond-2591166.html