Technology Shakedown #2: 'Blocked program' warning in Vista leads to a dead end

It has been less than 24 hours since I published ZDNet's first Technology Shakedown (regarding McAfee's antivirus software running amok on Vista's tray) and I was already itching to do another. So this time, I picked on a small problem that's driving me nuts in Windows Vista that has to do with a warning about startup program being blocked.

Maybe you get this too? A warning pops up from Vista's tray telling you that some startup programs have been blocked due to a Windows permission issue. More specifically, it says:

Windows has blocked some startup programs Windows blocks programs that require permission to run when Windows Starts. Click to view blocked programs.

But, there are three problems with this warning. The first of them is what I call "Click what?" Click the warning bubble? Click the icon that it's pointing to? As it turns out, you can't click the warning bubble itself (clicking it just makes it disappear). And, if you click the icon it's pointing to, you may get the wrong results as well. That's because sometimes, it points to the wrong icon in the tray as the item that you should be able to click-on for more information. Thirdly, as you'll see in the video, when you click on the correct icon, it's pretty much impossible to identify the programs that are being blocked. It's completely non-intuitive which is why I felt it was deserving of a trademark Technology Shakedown.

Do you have a video of your technology failing on you? Or at least not living up to the promise that it should be? Share it with me and if I think it's worth getting out to ZDNet's readers, I'll blog it. I can be reached at david.berlind@cnet.com