Since I was going the high-dollar route, however, I soon (and I mean soon, a half hour at most) received a call from a very knowledgeable techie over a speakerphone. On Saturday. From his home! Keith wasn't able to figure out exactly what the problem was, but the thing I appreciated most was that I did not get the standard scripted response that you almost universally get from so-called "free" technical support. (You pay for it by banging your head against the wall in frustration after talking to them.)
Keith knew what he was talking about. He treated me like a customer and another programmer and didn't assume I knew nothing. This made it possible to zero in on what to do remarkably quickly. After checking a few obvious possibilities, we set up a remote connection to my PC so Keith could work directly on my box.
The short version of the story is that, using emailed instructions that Keith got to me right after that, I was able to zero in on what was actually causing the problem. It was the software driver for a non-Microsoft piece of hardware. (Since this is a Visual Basic site, I won't mention the brand name. If you're absolutly dying to know, email me and I'll tell you everything.) I replaced it with the equivalent Microsoft product and I'm up and cranking again!
(Conspiracy buffs believe that Microsoft makes life hard for anyone else to compete deliberately. They may be right. But if Microsoft does that today, they're taking an awful chance because anyone who can prove it can cash in on a lawsuit bonanza in courtrooms around the world. My opinion is that Microsoft, not being stupid, doesn't do that now and maybe they never did.)
The bottom line is that, in at least this one case, Microsoft official support justifies even the nosebleed price levels you see on their site. If it's gotta work because your business depends on it, those prices are a huge bargain.
