Hello. I was unsure if this is at all the right place to post this but I saw several similiar (but not quite the same) questions in the search results in this category so here we go.

My problem is as follows. I, by mistake, closed my Microsoft account. It had an XBOX Live account linked to it, which had a game that I bought on steam. I wanted a different gamertag for that after I used the one available free rename so I, and here's where it gets stupid, decided that I should delete/close both those accounts and just make a new one. I did exactly that, in that order, and then found out that my XBOX Live account, which was linked to the successfully deleted Microsoft Account, still exists, still has the game, and the product key that steam gives me can no longer be used, meaning I locked myself out of accessing that game. I can't seem to somehow link a new Microsoft account to that XBOX Live one, and I can't access the XBOX Live one on it's own, it's always accessed by inputting my email, which is the Microsoft account (although I used an external email from gmail.com which I still have, obviously). If I input that in the game when it asks me to, it just says the account doesn't exist, as does account.live.com, where, I believe, I closed it in the first place.

So essentially I'm hoping that someone can do something to allow me access to that XBOX Live account and subsequently the one game that's registered on it. I believe I should be able to provide some proof of ownership. I asked this on the xbox live board as well (still waiting for answers from there), and I also contacted phone support several days ago, but they said they'd send a request about that to somebody else (after getting some info from me, like the product key, and verifying my email (on gmail) which was used for that closed Microsoft account, both of which gave me hope) and get back to me via phone or email, but there's been no answer for two days and I suspect there won't be in the future. However, if it helps, after our short discussion the lady I talked to from the phone support came to the conclusion that the way to do it would be to somehow restore the closed Microsoft account. I read somewhere that the email adress frees up after 30 days pass since the account is closed, but I am pretty certain that I won't get access to the same XBOX Live account just by registering the same email. This seems like a sure way for people to get all sorts of things they don't own from other people's old accounts.