So I installed two of the three VPNs I need on my Vista machine.

First: isn’t there a proper UI somewhere to connect to networks? I hate that stupid “Connect to a network” window… The UI is horrible. I have to scroll up and down like crazy to get past the list of available wireless networks alone, while each of the entries takes up far too much place. Sure, I can switch over to &ldquoial-up and VPN”, but that setting isn’t remembered, so I have to switch over again each time I open the window. Right, did I mention that window closes on me all the time? Created a new connection? The window is gone. Connected to a network? Window gone again. Getting the window back needs two clicks on the tiny system tray icon and the context menu entry, plus a search through the stupid list. I want my normal “network connections” window from XP back! Maybe that’s not intuitive to the weekend Windows user, but I don’t care.
Update: I found it – the old network connections window is still available, only not as easy or intuitive to get to as it previously was. Doesn’t change anything about that peculiarity described under “Fourth” below…

Second, Installing VPNs… has anybody ever actually used that “Use gateway on remote network” option? Apart from switching it off, I mean? How about setting a useful default there? Instead they have changed the default for “include Windows logon domain”, which took me a while to notice. It has to be switched off, probably in most cases, but now it’s switched on by default.

Third, OneCare. Of course I wasn’t able to establish a connection with any of my VPNs without switching off the OneCare firewall. No noticification, nothing, it just doesn’t work. Wait, there’s the “analyze connection trouble” link… shoot, doesn’t find any reason. In fact it says everything’s great – right after informing me that the connection failed to be established.

The good news is that the “Firewall connection tool” manages to activate VPN connections through the OneCare firewall. For some reason, the button to run that tool was inactive in the options dialog for a while, but now it’s active again and setting that check box is really easy, provided you guess that you have to.

Fourth, what’s that crap with the Network and Sharing Center? Let’s call my two VPNs VPN1 and VPN2 for a moment. So I connected to VPN1. After a moment, I window came up asking me what that network was – Home, Work or Public, IIRC, and what the name was. Okay, I said it was Work and it was called VPN1. Great, so far. Then I killed that connection again and connected to VPN2 instead. Sat there and waited for the window to come up… nothing. Back into the “Connect to network” window – yes, it’s connected alright. Well. Then I noticed that in the context menu of the tray icon, sub menu Disconnect from, it said VPN1 instead of VPN2. Huh? Opened Network and Sharing Center and there it was: I’m connected to VPN1, Connection: VPN2. Huh? What? Plus, my private network classification from VPN1 had also carried over to VPN2, making this not only a usability thing but also a security issue.

I don’t see the point in the Network and Sharing Center, as far as network connections are concerned. It displays incomprehensible information and it offers no way of configuring the networks. In fact it (or the functionality behind it, rather) seems to be dangerous… in case anybody has something enlightening to say about this, please go ahead.

I have previously written about the fact that OneCare killed the connectivity with my Windows Mobile device. Now I got a OneCare update installed yesterday (I think it was yesterday) (oh yes, and I *loved* that “OneCare is going to reboot your system in 4 hours” dialog… WTF? What if wasn’t there over the weekend or something? Can you spell “loss of data”, Microsoft?) and so I thought today I’d just try whether the issue had maybe been fixed. Previously I had just disabled the firewall while on my secured home network and synced my phone – not nice, but it worked.

Now read this message carefully:

Wow! Ain’t that peculiarfantastic! So not they’ve done it: I can’t use my Windows Mobile device with my computer because of my firewall, and when I switch off the firewall and connect the device, the firewall automatically reactivates to protect me from the device! Let me repeat that: Wow!

So, the good news is that there’s an option “Automatically change my Firewall protection level when I connect to an unsecured network”. But this was already there in the previous version of OneCare, without the same effect… so obviously they changed something about the Windows Mobile connectivity thing, just not the right thing. Plus, I don’t really want to turn off that option, it’s a good option… oh, f#*k it.

(5 minutes later) Even with that option switched off, I still can’t make my phone connect… it used to work only a few days ago, so I wonder if there’s still something in the way, even though the firewall is now switched off (and stays switched off). Guess I’ll have to fiddle around, reboot, that kind of thing, to be sure – I’ll do that later.

Update: I have now rebooted and tried again, and as long as the firewall and the option are switched off, I can now connect and synchronize my phone again. Magic.

There are currently at least two bug reports on Microsoft’s Connect site: here and here. As is often the case, there doesn’t seem to be any reaction to these issues though. One of the things I hate about beta software from MS, I must admit: there’s never any direct contact with the responsible people.