Confused about backwards compitablity/tech issues

I am a homeworld fan and I really enjoy all three games(the first one I love the most) I got a new PC last september and it came with Vista on it. Sure I know alot of games don't work and I witness first hand. But I noticed here on gamespot. They did a list of games they tried and got working on vista related with the vista launch stuff. Anyways I noticed they said Homeworld Catclysm worked in the beta versions and all here

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6154735/p-2.html

But when I try to get it working on my pc it plays the first 2 AVI's but crashes before the mainmenu shows up. Did something happen from beta to the final version of vista that made the game not compitable anymore? or do you need specfic requirements? I have tried the whole run it in compitablity mode under all the different settings and nothing still works.

So anyone have some tips to help out a vista user to get this to possible work?

Oh wow I feel dumb. It just sucked that it took me about a hour today to find a working download link or that didn't require me having to sign up on different sites. But man so happy the game is running like a charm now :3 I can't beleive I didn't think about patching it.

And on a side note. Is Gamespot removing some of the older downloads off this site? or is there some code lost in transitions from themes to themes? since I remember coming here for downloads for alot of my older games. And now I can't find them listed or they don't work at all.

Oh wow I feel dumb. It just sucked that it took me about a hour today to find a working download link or that didn't require me having to sign up on different sites. But man so happy the game is running like a charm now :3 I can't beleive I didn't think about patching it.

And on a side note. Is Gamespot removing some of the older downloads off this site? or is there some code lost in transitions from themes to themes? since I remember coming here for downloads for alot of my older games. And now I can't find them listed or they don't work at all.

the Homeworld games are masterpieces of RTSMarfoo

Which series? the old one or the new series of battlestar?

Also Homeworld was the vary first game that I purchased with my own money, And I am glad I can say it is one of the best games I have ever bought :3 Then my friend got me cataclysm. And being born into not the richist families..... I didn't end up buying Homeworld 2 because of not having a PC that could handle it till 4 years ago. And by then everything has been depleted and I hate buying things online :/ So I had to resort to other measures to play it. I look forward to the day where I can have a hardcopy with boxart and all to sit beside the other two games :3