Of course do the following ON YOUR OWN responsibility. Don't do any firmware updates using Vista. This is still dangerous.

Enough said. Back to business:

• Download and run orca.exe (this is a disassembler for MSI that is supplied by Microsoft).  Orca is part of the Windows SDK. EDIT: if you don't want to download windows SDK you can download orca here .
  
• Pop the Zune CD in the drive and run d:\packages\zune\zune-x86-enu.exe EDIT: just run it, don't continue with the setup.
  
• Search your harddrive for "zune.msi" and copy it somewhere (like to your desktop). EDIT: make sure in the windows search when you click "more advanced options" you have selected "Search system folders", "Search hidden files and folders" and "Search subfolders". After copying the Zune.msi its safe to close the Zune installation program.
• Open the package in ORCA and navigate to the "LaunchCondition" table.  Remove the condition row that says that the MSI must be running under ZuneSetup.exe
• Navigate to the MsiDriverPackages table and remove the driver installation.
• Save your changes and run the MSI.
• Try to run Zune from the start menu, you will get an error saying that the OS is not supported.
• Right click on the shortcut, and set compatibility mode to XP SP2.
• ***You may have to restart the machine at this point***
• Run Zune again and plugin your Zune.  The device should be discovered and the Zune should be ready for sync.
• If Windows doesn't auto-install the Zune, you will find the INF in "c:\program files\Zune" EDIT: right click on it and select "install"
  

 See ? Vista support was there from the beginning. Maybe Microsoft is not sure yet for the stability on Vista and takes one step at a time, starting only with XP.

Take the next step! 

Go to Andre's posting here .

[via ZuneBoards]