I am having a few issues with my vista machine.

1.  WMI is not functioning properly.  I saw some postings about permissions;
in particular people were putting their network service account in the
administrators group.  I don't care for that solution.  I deleted the
repository directory, cycled WMI service and then checked the permissions on
the recreated directory; they are:

C:\Windows\System32\wbem\repository
       BUILTIN\Administrators:(OI)(CI)F
       NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:(OI)(CI)F

I'm pretty sure that is not right although I'm not sure what it should be.
Will simply changing the permissions fix the problem or will it still exist
because the service is creating it incorrectly?

This is the most important of the issues since it impacts a great many
processes on Vista.  I cannot start File and Print sharing (my network
interface reports as "Unknown - No such interface supported"), the SQL
Config. Mgr doesn't start, several other processes are impacted.   This
particular problem makes Vista less than functional.

2. The task manager will not start.  When I attempt to do so I get the error
message, "The system cannot find the file c:\windows\system32\taskmgr.exe."
The file is there and the permissions are:

C:\Windows\System32\taskmgr.exe
       NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller:F
       BUILTIN\Administrators:R
       NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:R
       BUILTIN\Users:R

3. SP1 - same problem as everyone else.  I don't think that I meet any of
the conditions stated in KB 948343 - of course, I'm not sure how to check on
cause 5 - hardware device driver conflict.  Why would there not be an
explicit message if it detected an incompatible piece of hardware?  And
better, how would the windows update process detect such a problem before
offering me the SP?