[Imp]

Don
As I think you know never had Win7 but had Vista then switched back as when I set up dual booting found my system ran a lot faster using XP.
Before I did that though I fixed the Vista issues & have done the same for mates with Win7 as computer savy.

I forget what they are called now & how to do it but a few minutes on Forums will tell you (or anyone) how to swith off the functions.
Its easy enough & Win7 is even easier than Vista.

2 things to switch off.

The first the one that gives a pop up everytime you try to do something that modifies the system like installing or moving something.
Supposed to be a security feature but if your really worried about security use a non administrator account, switch to an administrator account when you want to do stuff.
Somebody remote accesing can press the yes I want to continue box just as easily as you.

The second is the annoying feature that moves user generated files to another location.
2 options
Switch it off
or
Look up the folder it moves everything to as you can then interact with them there.
Note did not try this just found it to delete everything in it once I switched it off.
Moving stuff here may confuse the computer a bit & leave loads of dead registry entries so would want to clean your reg after.

I think the idea behind it was for business everythings in the same place which makes Networks & IT guys job easy.

As said both simple when you know what they are called in control panel if I remember correct just select the checkbox to switch them off.