Im going to assume the issue with vista is you can't disable the directx 3d acceleration needed to make it work with the SOM map editor.
The only real work around I could suggest is getting an XP machine or an XP virtual machine to work on.
I may have a working XP box sitting around to donate to your cause if youd be interested, all I would ask is if you could help pay the shipping to get it to you. I think unfortunately the way microsoft has changed things with vista/7 and direct x its just getting far beyond the compatibility range for SOM.
I have a vista box myself, and the only way I was able to run SOM map editor was either through a VM session (which is not that hard really and I would be glad to help you get one set up) or by disabling the graphics card and forcing my pc to run on the integrated onboard chipset...which even then it was hit or miss.
The Virtual Machine (VM) remedy is actually not terribly difficult to get used to. You simply set up SOM as you have it now, somewhere on your Vista machine. You then create a virtual machine of xp which once inside, you map a 'network' drive as the hard drive on your vista machine and you run SOM from the xp VM against the SOM project that is hosted on your vista drive. this allows you to edit the map in xp, which is compatible with SOM since while in the virtual machine no direct x functionality is active (virtual machines dont recognize graphics cards/drivers). But what this also means is you would want to actually test what youve placed in vista so you can see what it looks like.
Email me and I will get you hooked up.
