[Full-disclosure] Vista Reduced Function mode triggered

[Geo.]

> Yeah, probably - but just for the fun of it I'm curious what happened
> (unless it's some dumb user error).

Well I've been running NT flavors of windows since 1994 but I'm not beyond 
dumb user errors. So what sort of dumb user error (besides telling the 
machine NO you may not have full internet access) do you think would cause 
reduced functionality mode to kick in? And why would it kick back off with 
such stealth? I mean shouldn't there be some sort of notification so admins 
don't spend lifetimes trying to track down why solitaire stops working?

I did disable a bunch of unneeded services like ssdp discovery, upnp, 
windows defender, the windows firewall, ICS and BITS and stopped and started 
others like media center launch and media center extender. But the disabled 
services are still disabled and there were plenty of reboots prior to 
reduced functionality mode kicking in.

If it takes more than simply roping the computer to a fraction of the 
internet then it could be any combination of things, I mean I played with it 
for over a week before it went into reduced functionality mode.

Geo.