Corporate build - partial fail

After months of trying, my works laptop finally received the attention of a friendly and skilled desktop support 'guy'.  So, this morning I took another (l-o-n-g) drive to Canary Wharf.  I met up with the desktop guy, and we tested the VPN, made sure the Office apps fired up, and ensured that Pointsec was 'happy'.  I trudged back to the motor, jumped in and set off on the (l-o-n-g) journey home.
With two thirds of the working day used up, I felt that I really should get online and inspect what was in my mailbox.  My good mood was soon shot down when I tried to get the damned works laptop to do anything useful.  The highlights:

• Getting a stable VPN connection on the all-new Juniper software took two reboots and seven or eight attempts
• MS Communicator is blocked by the Windows Firewall (an oxymoron, surely?); if I click the 'unblock' button, I see a UAC prompt - read on.
• My 'network drives' aren't reconnected (having this work is one of the reasons for the switch to the new VPN software, I suppose)
• Avaya IP Softphone is blocked by the Windows Firewall, again, another up a UAC prompt
• Avaya IP Softphone isn't configured; I'm prompted to create a database file in a place for which I don't have permissions to write

The UAC prompt is the issue the 'amuses' me most; being a corporate laptop I'm not considered to be computer savvy and as such, the admin privs that the UAC asks for, can't be granted by me.  Sure, I can have a desktop support person do the job, but, I have to sell a limb to get the ticket in front of a real person, and even then, I have to be in the office...

I realise that developing a 'corporate' desktop is fairly hard work.  However, as a user, the incarnation I've been expected to use over the last year or so has failed at almost every opportunity.


I suppose I could go on about using Linux; I'll not jump on that wagon, yet.  There is a possibility that I'll have a chance to influence such a decision in the next year or so, and I'm going to (seriously) look at whether it's a real possibility.  Maybe having been on the user side of the fence, I'll be able to develop a 'corporate' solution that really works.
Arrogant? Maybe.  Time will tell...