I'm not using VPC with Vista although I have it Jim, and Colin and some
others probably have some direct dealings with it.
For the purposes of getting things up and running with VPC, why don't you
type secpol.msc into the run box and go to the 3rd from last item and make
sure it's enabled. Then later you can configurer it back or tweak UAC to
your liking. That should help with permissions.
I don't know if anything in this links will help you uncover something that
helps you get connected:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833137/en-us
http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/vista/virtualpc2004.htm
"I found that the best setting for Network Adapter 1 was to select the host
NIC. In particular, this configuration cured a specific problem: Virtual
PC could not open the Virtual Machine Network Services driver, or The
Virtual Machine Network Services driver has failed to install."
Do you have any error when you try to surf or just get a 404 error? Type
eventvwr.msc in run box and click on application>hit arrow and see if any
entries speak to connecting, and do the same with system.
CH