Then Vista will go to extreme lengths to hide the fact that you are actually connected to a VPN network (after a while, 1 or 2 hours in my case, if you hover your mouse over the network icon you don't see your VPN. You have to go to “Networks” to see that you actually are connected).

And forget about using Visual Studio over VPN. Hitting Ctrl+S takes 25-30 seconds to complete (until which Visual Studio is unuseable). You're better off using gVim or Wordpad.

And last but not least.. when Vista detects a new network connection it asks you whether or not your computer is Public (which to me means you're connecting to an unsecure network). But apparently to Vista this means your files will be shared and available for others to browse. If you select Private, your computer becomes undetectable over the network.

If you want a good challenge (beyond that of learning how to install Gentoo for the first time from stage 1) try setting up a wireless connection with Vista. I think Microsoft poured extra money into that department this time. The manager overseeing that part of the project must be very pleased with himself.

But I paid money for Vista, so I'm going to use it no matter what. Plus I figure I need to know this, for work if nothing else. Eventually lots of people will be using Vista or Vista's successor and I'll need to know how to use the piece of crap. If Linux takes over the world I'll give up using Windows entirely.