Since all our systems are behind the corporate firewall, there are no local firewalls on the workstations. Aside from disabling the firewall, I haven't run into the same issues..

net use x: \\vistapc\c$ /user:vistapc\administrator P@ssw0rd
just worked for me. Of course, the default installation leaves the administrator account disabled. I defined a password and enabled the account as part of the install process. If you don't do that, it won't work.

There are some anomolies, some (I think) due to outdated tools..
pslist \\VistaPC fails, but XNet List \\VistaPC works just fine. SIT 2.0 works well against Vista systems using a combination of remote registry, wmi, and other processes. Version 2.2 uses WMI almost exclusively, and works fine, including managing services, processes, and such.

I'll publish my configuration tasks when they're complete - might be useful to others..

Glenn
_________________________
Actually I am a Rocket Scientist! \:D