"A clerk at the local rock instrument store told me that Windows Vista support of MIDI is 'crappy'"

All I can add is that my USB MIDI cable works fine on XP, but cannot be selected on VISTA. There doesn't seem to be any way to select a MIDI output device, even inside my VB code which can pick up the device list. And no MIDI mapper.

OK, programs can play MIDI files OK on the internal sound card - but that's NOT what I need.

Remembering back to when I first had my XP laptop, I couldn't find the MIDI mapper, but after going round all the drivers etc, but NOT making changes, it suddenly appeared. Never did find out why.