Sounds like a config issue to me. I share my Internet connection between 3 other computers at home. One running Vista, the others running XP. They're all able to see each other just fine.

If it's working fine and you change something and it stops working... ;)

Strange. I disabled UAC on my Vista box for a week or so when I first got it and never saw another popup.

A network tweak to make your p2p stuff run a little faster does not equal a broken OS.

According to one of the links you provided: "...in order to protect the system from being used by malicious programs, such as viruses and worms, to spread to uninfected computers, or to launch distributed denial of service attack (DDoS)."

Works for me. There are way too many idiots on the Internet who bought their $300 Dell and wouldn't know a trojan or virus if it reached out of their monitor and smacked them in the head.

Kudos to Microsoft for helping do something to keep the Internet-challeneged idiots from screwing it up for the rest of us.

Dave