So I recently dropped from Gold to Silver, the email I was sent says "Hey it's no problem you'll still be able to get arcaede content, viiew your friends and all that other good stuff) however my experience begs to differ, when I log into my gamertag I see I'm able to do none of this, I'm completely cut off from any other channels other than the most basic I can't view my friends list,  view any inside Xbox movies none of it. It's as if Microsoft didn't drop me to silver but rather logged me out of Xbox Live completely, I tried to click on the Join Xbox live tab but it's asking me for my Windows Live ID and Password and to the best of my knowledge I never created a password for the thing Am I totally screwwed here or is their something I can do that I'm not aware of?

you had to have created an windows live ID to join xbox live its as simple as that, let alone that you NEEDED an email when xbox live first started on the original xbox, at some point nearly every one was prompted for this. especially when 360 came out and you basically needed the windows live ID.