i had arduino version 0014 running under windows vista, it worked fine, except by an incompatibility with aero ( problems with display resolution or something like that)
real problems begin when i installed visual studio, i was tryin to control an arduino duemilanove under visual basic ( via the firmata) but as soon as i instaled visual basic, and run arduino, i get on the display this message " arduino.exe stop working" and i cannot use arduino anymore
First, delete (or rename) the java folder that is inside the Arduino folder. Just make sure you have the latest version of Java installed. This will fix the Aero issue and may or may not solve the other issue.
You can also try running Arduino from the run.bat file in the Arduino folder, instead of by launching the exe directly, but may need to modify the .bat to reflect the java location.
You may also want to use a newer version of Arduino. I have Visual Studio 2008 on Vista Ultimate, and have run Arduino 15, 16, and 17 without any issues.