windows vista has a curious ability to stop you from using your own files. i think this is part of vista's "enhanced" security. getting around the guard dog requires some fancy footwork and several hours of wasted time. this reminds me of banks that won't let you get at your own money (e.g., "suspicious" activity, like, oh my god, leaving the usa) or visa's "verified by visa" feature which more aptly should be named "denied by visa" since i can never remember the password it makes me enter to use my own credit card.

somehow the permissions and ownership data on some of my files got out of whack. this meant that i could no longer open, move, delete, etc. etc. certain files, which were randomly distributed throughout my directories. part of this is due to trying to use cygwin's cp command. though i'm using a current version of cp, it seems to completely mess up file ownership and/or permission settings under vista. cp is a useful programbecause for some operations it is useful to have a command-line copy that is actually useful (unliked window's brain-damaged sibling to cp).

resetting ownership and permissions on the messed up files should fix the problem. trouble is, vista doesn't make this easy. first, there's a mess of dialogs with a terrible interface. the dialogs are nested (bad). there is a section that looks like it would let you select a different setting, but really it's just showing some data and you have to click on an edit button, or an advanced button and then an edit button, or maybe select a specific tab first. or two different tabs. there's no way to browse for a different user when setting ownership--you have to actually type the name of the user in. even though you're logged in as an admin, you still have to tell vista's user access control that it's ok to do this operation. after changing ownership vista will tell you to close the properties dialogs since apparently windows can't manage to use a run-of-the-mill ~30 year old concept such as model-view-controller. to look at this interface you'd think no one at microsoft had used a gui in the last 25+ years.

once you get past this nightmare of windows you have to do things in three steps, applied to all files recursively. first, change ownership to the administrator account. second, reset permissions. third, change ownership back to the user account. each of these steps takes somewhere in the vicinity of one hour or more. this is the truly incredible part. it is much slower than windows 2000 or xp at this operation, not that either of vista's predecessors were speed demons here. i have no idea why it takes so long. granted, scanning a directory structure for about 75000 files might take a little bit of time, but a program like windirstat manages to this in just a few short minutes. vista does need to do some security checks to make sure no prohibited operations are performed, but this is not rocket science and the checks shouldn't add more than a few seconds to the running time. the updates are all done in directory index files--no file data are modified. the whole thing should take maximum a few minutes on my hardware. not this laborious slow process which gives me all this spare time to complain about windoze.

to round things out, here are a few of the most recently discovered annoyances, either due to vista or to my hp tx2510us laptop.

file permissions and security:

- sometimes moving a file will require admin permissions, even though it is
not owned/created by an admin, and, even after giving an admin password, it
will fail to copy/move and get stuck in endless "failed" dialogs until the
operation is canceled.

- admins are denied some operations (e.g., see above for file move).

- user access control needs a "don't bother me again for this session" since
even an admin will get repeated messages while doing things.

- file permissions/access dialog is just as brain-dead as it was in 2000, if
not worse--there's no user browser selection (you have to type in a user name),
the dialog is several levels deep, etc.

- resetting file permissions/security can be annoyingly slow

- the fingerprint reader on the hp is useless: i can't get it to reliably accept my finger scans.

- there's no way to dump the list of services from the command line, similar to the export command from the services control panel (the sc command does not give me an output that will let me recreate the system if it needs rebuilding)

- there's no built-in system backup command. there's volume shadow copy which lets programs backup open files. but if i want to make a backup of my system i need to get a program like genie backup manager pro for usd$70, if i can even manage to do get the 130 mb download--100 of which are just for making a system backup as opposed to backing up regular data. there's an ability to make system restore points, but i'm talking about backing up the os and applications to removable media and/or an image file (external disk drive, dvds, etc.)

tablet interface:

- pen input has no history--if you screw up and input goes to the wrong box it's
lost and you have to reenter. this make pen input sufficiently annoying that the only program worth entering anything more than 2 words long is windows journal.

- there's no way to control the height of the input line in the pen input box.

- why is the title area in windows journal not resizable?

- there's no "left-hand" mode. for instance, this would switch the scrollbars from the right side to the left side of windows. at least firefox lets you switch the scrollbars around.

- the pen input window sometimes stops sending input to the window. you have to switch the focus aroudn with several applications to get it working again.

- there needs to be a little floatable toolbar with common commands, like cut/copy/paste. i shouldn't have to buy an expensive macro package to do this.

- windows doesn't recognize screen orientation at login page, won't rotate display either, so sometimes the screen is upside down when you're trying to login.

hp controls:

- volume controls only responsive after logging in, lag due to software interface
(more direct speaker control would have been better); same for screen orientation.

- no hard mute button. imagine being in a dorm and realizing you have no way to shut windows up during boot up and login when everyone is asleep.

- wifi and bluetooth switch is a slider, which can be accidentaly hit. same for power switch.

- no bluetooth on/off button separate from the wifi switch.

- the button linked to windows mobility center brings up the window behind other windows--not exactly what i had in mind.

- needs more buttons around the screen.