Long delay on "Connect to a network" after upgrading to Vista

This seems to be a common problem, to which I have not found a fix.
Long delay after clicking Connect to a Network in the system tray. Up to 30
seconds.
Do Microsoft acknowledge the problem? Any plans for a fix?

I have about 15 VPN connections on my laptop. With XP I would go Start ->
Connect to -> Customer, job done. I could then right-click and select status
from the system tray and see my IP address and the subnet of the destination
network.

With Vista, not only do I have this long delay, but the whole process is so
convoluted. When the Connect to a Network dialog box eventually opens, I
have a daft small box that I have to scroll through to find the network I
want to connect to. Then finding the subnet requires more messing about.

Is there an easier way? A shortcut to Network Connections on my start menu
seems to be about the best so far. It was better with XP.

I didn't want to upgrade to Vista, but it's awkward when customers call up
and they've gone out and bought a new machine with Vista on it, and I don't
know my way around yet. Ho hum