Quote - ...Can Vista be tailored to be un-obnoxious? I don't care about the default....I mean the result after making preferences....as far as security alerts etc that people are complaining about?

I have to check 2 legacy apps, EditPlus, Canvas.

::::: Opera :::::

Pretty much you can enable/disable any part of the OS from the control panel. You can turn Aero, or UAC (that is the security alerts) stuff, or pretty much anything that you want to on and off at any time.
You can also shut down any of the 'services' from the task manager. Some of the services are sort of mandatory, if you want things like 'system diagnostics' to work right.

I don't know anything about either of those programs in terms of Vista compatability.

Friends don't let friends use booleans.