for a product that seems to have a 1 in 3 chance of death, microsoft's responce was really good, got through the an operator quickly, they took my details, UPS picked it up the next day, should have it back in about a week
i suppose the cogs of tech support are well used to problems :P
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Its only taken me about 10 years to understand the water jug riddle in Die hard with a Vengeance. My brain takes a while, but it gets there in the end