I live in NE OH & knew that a Microsoft outlet opened at the Beachwood Place mall months ago, about 30 miles from where I live.
In Oct 2012 they opened a "pop-up" store there, basically a kiosk.
I do almost everything computer-related online now, except that there is an excellent retail outlet, MicroCenter, about 4 miles from Beachwood that I visit several times a year, they often have really good deals on equipment that's being phased out, and sell refurbished stuff with optional extended warranties for very reasonable prices. I bought a regular version of OneNote 2010 software for $18 there, the cheapest price I have found anywhere.
But I never had a reason to veer off my usual path, and check out the Microsoft retail outlet a short distance from MicroCenter.
In April 2013 Microsoft opened a regular retail store in the same mall, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8uUxy2l_nI
Still had no reason to visit. Then my sister moved back to NE OH from NM, and lives in an apartment 7 miles from Microcenter. So now I go up weekly, visit Sis and then the Microcenter. Two weeks ago sis got a Dell touchscreen laptop with Win 8.1 from her daughter & suddenly got bogged down with malware & browser hijackers as she set up her new machine. I spent 2.5 hours the other day debugging her machine.
As I was heading toward the Microcenter, I decided to veer off & pay a visit to the Microsoft retail outlet.
I was quite pleased. The staff was enthusiastic, friendly & very knowledgeable. I used a test question to see how they would respond, e.g. for someone who bought Office 2010 Home & Student Family and who had lost the installation media but still had a valid installation code key, what were the options? They could answer the question in 30 seconds, faster than it took me to find out at home.
I got a free diet Mountain Dew while I was there.
I found that they offered free virus and malware removal from Microsoft systems, and went off.
I called my sister from the store & told her about this. She lives just 5 miles from that store. Since then she has stopped by twice to have funny stuff fixed on her new laptop, which happened while she waited. She was careful to show up in mid-afternoon & not on the weekends, times which are the slowest there.
A good thing to know, and a great benefit for my sister, and indirectly for me