What Software?

I agree, just running an Administrator privileged command prompt is hard!

Regarding Norton Security Suite
I'm concerned that the user will receive many popup warnings once the computer has been offline for a few days (unless Internet does in fact go online today)

Also Norton itself is a big resource hog on any computer, especially with Vista
I believe that you should have kept to my first post, and possibly installing Ad-aware (ie Spybots includes Resident protection, another slow down factor)
If the user feels they need to scan for Malware, at least Ad-aware will exist.

The way you have set up your friends computer, is not the way I'd have it. Especially with the 90 day re-visit that must be done. (why also become familiar with something that will be removed anyway)

The computer should have the basics only (including the above), with all Windows security updates completed. And that's it.
All other software packages are for the user to decide on, as he/she becomes more familiar with Vista in whole.