Well, I wrote to Dell Customer Services at County Wicklow a month ago. Last Thursday, 28 days later, having had no reply of any sort from them - not even an acknowledgement - I wrote a letter direct to the CEO in Bracknell asking him to intervene personally......
Today a chap from Dell rang and after I recounted my tale of woe for the Nth time, he promised to send me a new laptop to replace the old one which their repair centre had killed.
Fingers crossed for a satisfactory outcome - shall find out very soon! He also promised to replace the MS Office software as well....