February 2008: 

Just back from the big NAMM music products show.  Many music software hardware companies now have Vista support and the remaining issues are being worked out.  Here is a posting that does a great job of summing up the issues;

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/01/16/vista-for-audio-1-year-later-talking-os-plumbing-with-cakewalks-cto/ 

While still pending a complete review of performance enhancement, the Vista WaveRT driver model may prove offer some dramatic improvements in latency etc. 

September 2007 Update:
Creative Labs has improved, but not completed their Vista support.  Our test Vista system has been running well, but a few features are still not working as well as we'd like in regards to audio, MIDI and MusiConsole.  We still recommend XP for educational music technology use. 

Any new system at this point will be capable of handling the Vista upgrade when (or if) it is recommended.

April 18, 2007: Vista and Creative Labs - trouble and promise...
While Creative Labs may have produced functional Vista Drivers for the Soundblaster family (SB Live, Audigy, X-Fi), it seems the Creative Labs software  associated with these cards is not Vista capable.

However, it seems a Chinese developer (possibly associated with Creative Labs) has developed a version of the X-Fi software that works with Vista.  There's an extensive posting on this regarding in the Creative Forum:

The link is: (opens new window) www.youp-pax.org/viewthread.php?tid=362&extra=page%3D1

April 15, 2007:  Progress report
After building a Core-2 Duo based Vista machine with the Creative Labs X-Fi card, it seems basic audio features work.  It is not clear form the Creative Labs Vista download whether the various Creative Labs software apps are also compatible. 

Two good sources of Vista/audio information both in general, and as it relates to Creative Lab's products are: 

http://us.creative.com/support/vista/ 

Creative Lab's Solution ID 7369.

March 20, 2007: Creative Labs Vista Drivers now "official".
The fact that the Creative Labs Vista driver availability chart no longer shows "Beta Driver Available" is good news.  We'll be doing testing soon to make sure the actual Vista w/ Soundcard experience is as good or better than the XP experience.

February 12, 2007
It's worth noting that Microsoft plans to Support Windows XP for at least seven years per the folks at PC World. 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128669-page,3-c,vistalonghorn/article.html

February 9, 2007:   Implications of Windows Vista for the Music Maker:  
At ePiano, we want to embrace all technologies that improve the music making experience.  By improve, we don't just mean more powerful, but rather to make it more reliable, more stable, or easier to use. Frankly, there has been ample power in prior Windows versions for most music making activities.  In regards to our key criteria (reliability, stability, ease of use), the jury is still out on the new Microsoft Vista for music makers.   Our overall take is that, at least for music making tools, the advantages don't outweigh the trade-offs (at this time).  This could change as drivers from the Soundcard companies evolve and more is known about how MIDI and audio actually respond in Vista, in the real world.   The average user working with Microsoft Office, and internet browsing will probably love the cool features of the new Vista, now.   Music folks, whoa!

Educational software companies, and many music hardware companies often don't have the budget to quickly re-program, test and update software to meet the challenges of an evolving new operating system and new hardware requirements. Right or wrong, many companies will wait to see how certain things "shake out" before investing in updated code/drivers etc.   Our best guess is that by May/June of 2007, things should be stabilized.    

FYI  - Windows XP can still be sold/installed on a new PC.  Per Microsoft - XP will be offered as a new system alternative after the release of Vista (so, let's say January 2008). See Microsoft's lifecycle policy at:  http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx   

This is a hot new topic, we'll plan to update the information below as facts evolve:

TOP VISTA AUDIO FACTS for Music Makers/Music Creation:

MIDI

Same as XP?
MIDI support doesn't seem to have improved nor changed per a post from Larry Osterman, one of the head audio dudes at Microsoft.  The direct quote from a posting on his blog is:

  "we're not doing a lot with MIDI in Vista, unfortunately :(" . 

I'm not certain as to the exact implications of this, but it likely means that the standard Microsoft USB compliant MIDI Driver will remain the same as in XP and allow only one program to use the MIDI drivers at a time (aka is not Multi-client).  As something a user is likely to do, either intentionally or inadvertently - this is a problem and a pain when trying to launch two applications that use MIDI at the same time, like our Soundsetter application at the same time as Home Concert, Cakewalk, etc.   The user is given an error message that informs them that another program is already using the MIDI driver. ePiano avoids this by recommending and using 3rd party USB/MIDI interfaces that ARE multi client.  

Good:
* Soundfont Support still OK.
* MIDI still works?!

Bad:
* Still no standard Multi-client MIDI Driver
* No improvements or extended MIDI features.

Soundcard Implications:

The change of the whole audio processing routine in Windows Vista is throwing a huge curveball at Soundcard manufacturers like Creative Labs.  The facts are rather technical, but I think it is safely summed up as:  Yikes!Creative labs is scrambling to release Vista drivers - and has written an extensive posting in their support group about the nature of Vista Audio architecture.  They'll be using a new thing called OpenAL http://www.openal.org/ to replace the DirectSound architecture that seems was their prior foundation for effects, hardware processing speed etc. 

Good:  hmmm..not easy but:
*ASIO apparently not affected. 
*Technical improvements in Vista may eventually generate a more stable audio platform. 

Bad:
*EAX effects not supported (real bad news for gamers). 
*CPU may have more work to do in certain audio situations. 
*Drivers/Software need to be updated for reliable performance across applications.
*Some old apps might not work properly depending upon how they relied upon DirectSound for speedy processing (mostly gamers will have this problem). 

Technical Resources on Audio in Vista:

Creative Labs Driver Availability Chart:

Overview of Creative Labs status regarding Vista audio:
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=Vista&message.id=8

Best info regarding the Vista changes and implications for Creative Labs Products.
Very technical: 
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=Vista&message.id=1694

Larry Osterman's Blog: The Windows Audio Guru:
http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/default.aspx
Larry's Audio blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/tags/Audio/default.aspx

Windows guru Paul Thurrott's complete review of all things Vista:
http://www.winsupersite.com/vista/