I am running Vista SP2 x64 and FTM 2009 and ran into the crashing issue that a couple of people commented about. After installing FTM 2009, it prompted me to update the software to version 18.0.0.307 which is the latest. Note that the "patch" for Vista is listed as version 18.0.0.305 so the 307 patch should be the latest and include the Vista patch.

When installing to Vista, there are a couple of things to remember:
1. When installing programs, a lot of them need to be installed as Administrator. This is not a fault of Vista, it is a fault of the Program makers (I'm a software developer) so I know all about this. For ever programs have assumed that they unnecessarily require Admin access to install correctly when this is generally not the case. Anyhow, to install a program as an Administrator in Vista, you should browse to the install program and right-click then select "Run as Administrator".

2. I've seen a post or two (buried in FTM's "support") noting that you should always run FTM as an Admin if you want to view Books, etc. To do this, find the icon for launching FTM 2009, right-click it, select Properties and then select "Advanced" on the Shortcut tab. Then click the "Run as Administrator" checkbox.

3. If you continue to have problems there is a cool feature (though not widely known) to have your programs run in "compatibility mode". To run this in compatibility mode, find the FTM.exe (probably in (C:\Program Files (x86)\Family Tree Maker 2009), right-click it and select Properties. Go to the Compatibility tab. Check the "Run this program in compatibility mode for" and select the OS you want it to run under. I usually select XP if I have continuous problems with a program that isn't really Vista ready - even if it claims to be.

Hope this helps! Please reply back and let me know how it goes :)

Dave