Certain problems with Vista won"t be fixed by service packs or by updates but rather were actually part of the design. Users got used to XP and the way XP did things but Vista does some things differently. To help get your sanity back here are three things you can do to make Vista more amiable.
First, let"s tackle UAC. Vista"s UAC enables account controls which requires you to specify program actions when they need elevated permissions. The problem is that almost every action in Vista will require such. This can be turned off while still leaving the more important virtualization protection in place.
There are two ways to do this, by using native commands in Vista which is a 6-step process and should be avoided by everyone unless you want to create "Local Security Policy" specifically for that. I can"t recommend doing so. Instead, download Tweak UAC which will allow you to painlessly enable quiet mode.