I have been trying to install the status meter to my wife's laptop. It is an older Dell. The OS is Vista business. I have installed/ uninstalled many times. Turned the antivirus off. Restarted the laptop. The status meter installs but will not open.
The newer one doesn't require Air - Is the Win Vista machine fully updated? Have you tried to install the program in administrative mode? Have you tried running it in administrative mode after installing it?
It's a higher privilege mode in the OS, Vista UAC was very strict about some things that it really shouldn't have been and could cause more headaches than Win7+ UAC.
To run something in Administrative Mode, right click on it, then click "Run as Administrator". This will let the program run, or attempt to run as if it was being ran inside the hidden administrator account.