So a lot of us ran out to Circuit City, Target, CompUSA, etc. to get our hands on Microsoft’s latest portable media offering – the super-hyped Zune. Zune has been in production, publicly, for at least the past 8 months. Even longer behind the scenes I am sure. At the same time Microsoft has also been feverishly developing and testing in preparation for release the latest incarnation of its desktop operating system – Windows Vista. Common sense would tell you that somewhere in that time span someone on one of three teams: Zune, Vista or Media Player would have thought of Windows Vista compatibility for the device. Nope. At least not in any sense that seems slightly logical. The box reads “Windows XP SP2 or later.” And as embarrassing as the gaffe is, you think a company like Microsoft would be forthright in admitting the error and letting us know ASAFP when the Vista compatible update would be available. I called the Zune support hot line and was told that they have gotten “a few” calls about that and they do “plan” on releasing a Windows Vista version of the software. They have no idea when. Watch the software downloads page. How is this even possible? Luckily I got wind of this before I pulled the trigger on my purchase. This is totally inexcusable IMO for a company like Microsoft. Some people have responded that Windows Vista has not been released to the public-at-large yet so they [Microsoft] have time to get it out. Windows Vista will be released to developers on the MSDN network Friday and Select and Volume licensing customers can download it now. I would also think that if the update was going to be available in the next two weeks they would announce it and not be so mysterious as when the update might be available. This gives me the sense that it will be months. My personal prediction is 2/07. Pity. iTunes works just fine on Windows Vista.