jshipp:
I am on Windows Vista. I originally tried to install everything on my old Acer laptop and had HORRIBLE troubles getting my com ports to recognize anything let alone the arduino....moved to my wife's dell also running Vista. Everything loaded up like a dream come true. I dont understand how the example code pre-written off the website wont compile. I have touched NOTHING in it other than "upload" I have tried it with the board connected and un-connected. Same compile error. If I wrote it I would be checking my code, since these are the examples I would hope they would be correct.
There is a fair amount of magic that has to happen for the IDE to compile, link and flash the device. So, your first step is reproducing the failure with more verbose output and working backwards from there.
I should add that the examples do, in fact, run under the majority of situations. This is obviously a specific system issue of some sort that is causing a compiler error when creating the .hex target for the board. It never even gets to the point of trying to flash the device.
Further to this: let's simplify as much as we can. Try to build the Bare Minimum example: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/BareMinimum