[john70t]

I do a lot of gaming (Steam FPS, flight sim, jigsaw and sudoku mostly) and invested a lot of time and money into that gaming computer.
Gaming on it only. Nothing personal. It's a neutral box. That's what makes the political advert pop-ups on the desktop feel so especially invasive.

The gaming box was actually originally intended to run MSFS2020 flight sim.
That was my dream game which I'd been lusting after a long time.
Microsoft ruined that dream.

I'd been using the 32-bit FSX for a long time and purchased probably a thousand bucks or so in photoscenery addons and software upgrades. You can't find everything in one place on the net and just stick it together. Every product is different and most are lacking in some way. For instance every island for the Caribbean is sold by a different supplier and some like Guadeloupe are sold as part of a separate package. Many areas can only be found in gracious freeware. Piece by piece I spent so many hours downloading and sorting files in correct order and tweeking just right. There is no drag-n-drop and auto fix there. It requires moving hundred of lines one manual click at a time. I collected the north half of Africa, flowing through almost all the middle east including Iran (no Turkey or SA), all of Europe, all of North America including the Caribbean and almost all of South America. I could finally fly most of the world with photoscenery underneath it all.

I wanted more. I bought the deluxe version of MSFS2020 one night.

A lot of crucial info was deceptively missing from the website.
Microsoft advertises "You own the game".
But how do you "own the game" when it requires internet connection to use the software each time?

There was an error code "no applicable device found" or something when trying to start the product.
I tried to return it unused within 24 hours..as advertised.
They required a manual customer service 'review' before a refund could be issued.
They could not 'find' my purchase order number. It was also not listed anywhere in my X-box or MS-Store account history.
Emailed back and forth many times with an idiot rep who played dumb.
They would not return my money.
Good thing I had saved a screenshot of the purchase. That was the only thing besides small claims.

TLDR:
Microsoft turned the most-desired software purchase into a nightmare.
Then they played stupid low-class tricks.
They lost my consumer trust, and my future business.