Windows 2008: I Hate You

I recently had the joy of installing Windows 2008 Server at work in preparation to migrate an older server application to it. I put off moving to or using the latest versions of Windows because I read of many of the headaches for sysadmins that lay in store (in case you want to relate a little, ever use Vista? Well, 2008 is Vista with server capabilities, and a few consumer interface items stripped out...but keeping most of the security problems).

In my two days using it, I ran into this short list of things that truly annoyed the bejebus out of me.

I ran a chkdsk (check disk) on the drives to repair any potential damage after a power outage that outlasted the UPS (I know, what were the odds?). Ordinarily, you run chkdsk at bootup, you can check the results by looking in the logs for messages from WinLogon. I searched for five minutes through the list without finding it...because now it was under something called WinInit. In a way this was funny, since I wondered "Wininit gonna work right for a change??"...say it out loud if you don't get it.
Almost every site, including Windows Updates, including innocuous sites that I've visited for years, including common sites for additional software...required me to add it to a "trusted sites" list. Sometimes it wouldn't even tell me it needed it, some redirect or addon simply wouldn't work. It's an additional step that I don't need when I'm under pressure to get the server working and get things configured.
VNC doesn't work. It's a neat program from www.realvnc.com (which has a free edition) that allows you to remotely view and control your desktop console. It's a convenient way to get to the console, whoever's logged in...we often use it for remote troubleshooting. It has its own password mechanism so it's not reliant on the password for a particular Windows user. "But Barry, why use that when you can use Remote Desktop? You get two client licenses included!"-easy. If Administrator is logged into the console downloading something, and then I RDP in and log in administrator, due to idiot licensing restrictions my login will kill the other session. So if something is being worked on at the same time...poof! Gone. VNC just brings up the remote console because it's remote control, not remote access. Anyway, VNC comes up with an error that Windows won't allow it to run because it's an interactive process. Nice. Really nice.
They changed the Management Console. I used to be able to right click on "my computer", go to manage, then from the top of the tree right click on the "local computer" and from there enter the address of another Windows system on our network so I could view services, system logs, etc...well, no more! Windows 2008 uses the "Server Management Console". And I can't connect to other systems from it! How handy is that?! Well, it's not. Thanks to some other people who were annoyed at this they already solved the problem...I just created a batch file on the desktop that contains the line, "start compmgmt.msc", launching the old fashioned management console from which I can actually manage other systems.
The system logs on the server like logging a message about licenses being validated by WinLogon. Um...who or what is it validating against? Why...? I'm always a bit skittish about software "phoning home". We are using a server, with potentially sensitive data on it. Maybe it's just validating against something on itself, maybe to one of our Active Directory servers, I don't know. But it's annoying me.
Creating a share seems to get more of a burden with each release of Windows. I had to use a wizard now to create a simple share; Wizards are supposed to be a good idea for helping new users with tasks that may be unfamiliar. But wow..."provision share"? I wasn't sure what it wanted me to do with that at first. The familiar route...right click the folder I want to share and select sharing...now takes you to a mini-wizard that would not let me change the name of the share, which I needed to do. I believe I ended up going through a submenu in the server manager to create the share I wanted...through a bigger wizard. All I would like is to right click the folder, have a list of tabbed options, and go from there. Why is that so !@#% difficult? This is Windows Server, sharing is a very basic and common task for server admins. Why must it be a topic for a wizard, without a choice to not suffer through a @#$$ wizard interface? Or worse, an inconsistent interface, since there is more than one wizard to go through for sharing?

Maybe these are just initial impressions and I have to adjust to it. But my first impression was that it was a pain in the arse. VNC didn't work on it. Security notifications keep popping up, even for Windows Update! And common tasks have to be relearned. This is progress? You must seriously have to love the Microsoft Kool-Aid to embrace newer versions of Windows. I find it to be an giant pain to deal with...

Anyone else have similar experiences? Or reasons I should love this version of Windows? Please?