The Microphone was feeding back terribly and I couldn't use it without awful,constant sound pollution.

I have to keep my microphone enabled as I am on a lot of conference calls every day.

I finally found I had to do the following:

1. Right click on the speaker/volume icon on the Taskbar

2. Left click on Sound Settings

3. Under Input select Device Properties

4. Under Related Settings click Additional device properties

5. On the Microphone Properties dialogue box progress to the tab Listen

6. Untick the Listen to this Device tick box and click Apply

Finally the feedback torture was gone!!