Update: I love MS chat support.

[Mr Puggsly]

Machiavellian said:

There is never a time when you need to be rude when seeking support.  I can tell you once you cross that bridge if you thought you were not getting help, you just killed it.  Instead you have to do the opposite.  Be very polite implore the person to do everything he or she can and ask them to go the extra mile.  You will find out tech reps are more than willing to help somone like that out and will go the extra mile to help out.

Having worked in tech support and even doing time as a MS tech support way back in the day, I have some insight for you.  They were not making you do useless stuff.  Most support cannot rely on the customer to actually have performed the basic troubleshooting steps needed to resolve issues, even if they are technical.  If MS support is like I remember, each call is logged and all steps are traked within the call.  If the issue get esculated, the person who gets the issue will review those notes so they know they do not need to cover those steps again.  The problem I see is that the issue did not get esculated.  

Were you just calling in and getting different people or did you get a issue number so that you can have the person on the other end reference your issue so that you would not have to go through the basics steps each time.  Hopfully you were civil thoughout the whole process.

They weren't going the extra mile for me, they wanted me to do the same crap over and over.

If I tell them I already called MS and did those steps the solution isn't do it again.

Frankly, if I wasn't rude useless troubleshooting for what appears to be a potential bug would have continued.