Windows 7 has officially ruined my life (cont'd)

The saga continues....

I took my computer back to BestBuy on Friday after work. I walk into the joint and a young man with a headset and a clipboard asked me how I was doing and what he could help me with. I took a deep breath and said "Okay, here's the deal..." I told him my plight. I thought that I was going to have to go into detail and discuss what exactly I'm trying to achieve and what audio latency is... I didn't have to do this.

Me: ... ... and Windows 7 has an inherent audio latency problem

Clippy: *nods* Yeeeaaahhh. It does.

Me: So you know about this?

Clippy: I had the same problem when I bought a new computer for trying to record music.

Me: I wish you sold me this computer. What did you do?

Clippy: Honestly, I brought it in to these guys [Geek Squad] and they fixed it for me.

Me: What do you think I should do?

Clippy: Buy a Mac?

Fuck you, Clippy. So I start talking about operating dual operating systems. He stops me and says that's way beyond his expertise and I should talk to one of the "agents". I'll have to wait because one of them is helping another customer. I take a seat at this bar and wait. I'm pretty optimistic that it's an easy fix. I don't know why... nothing has been easy so far.

While I'm waiting a guy makes eye contact from me from afar and starts heading over (if I had a drink in front of me, I would've thought I was getting picked up). He was wearing a "Windows Guru" shirt.

Guru: Have you been helped?

Me: I have. I'm just waiting for that guy there. But based on your shirt, I think you'll be able to help me.

Guru: Oh no. *takes a seat* What's going on?

Me: *explains problem*

Guru: Okay you have two options that come to mind. 1 - wipe hard-drive and install XP straight up. 2 - there's a "XP professional suite" program you can get that tricks your computer into thinking it has Windows XP installed, it just runs in the background, but when it's on, your computer runs just like it had XP on it. It's basically an application.

Me: How much?

Guru: I want to say $179?

Me: That's way more than I want to spend. In fact, I want to spend nothing because I just spent a bunch of money on this brand-new computer.

Then the Geek Squad guy comes over and the Guru bolted. For the third time I explained my problem, this time to the Geek. He said that I could wipe the hard-drive and put XP on it, but doesn't recommend that because there could be compatibility issues with my drivers for devices such as my sound card. Well, wouldn't that suck for my sound card to stop working altogether. Otherwise, dual operating system is the best bet and they charge $100 to do it. Which, again, is far more than I want to pay.

To get a restore disk, so I can re-install Windows 7 in case things go horribly, horribly wrong with XP costs $50. So pretty much my options are to spend a bunch more money just to make my brand new computer work, or else return it. Oh sure, I can exchange it, but any computer in their establishment comes with Windows 7 on it. So really I'll be in the same boat even if I switch it up.

I took it back to Brain Trepaning today and we went all over the internet searching for instructions on how to set up a dual operating system and trying everything we haven't tried before (and all the things we had already tried). We downloaded the latest drivers for everything. Windows 7 just won't allow it. It feels threatened by the older, wiser and more eXPerienced operating system.

My options as of right now are: to write a strongly worded letter to BestBuy and demand they pay the Geek Squad bill, or else; alternatively The Token Skeptic's husband is good at computers and he says he can install a secondary operating system. Despite her typical skepticism, she's confident in his abilities, so I can only hope there's some trick that he knows about.

Otherwise... *giant frowny face*