NOTE: The latest application version (V3), named ECMLink, is directly compatible with Vista. This page documents issues only with the older V2 DSMLink application.
DSMLink runs under Vista about as well as anything else. That is, you'll probably find some quirks to the experience and you'll probably have to do a few things a little differently at first. But, eventually, it'll all work fine.
Installation works best if you can install as the administrator. Failing that, if you copy the install executable to your harddrive somewhere and rename it setup.exe, it should work as well.
On some Vista systems (possibly when the application is not being run with administrator privileges), when you run the DSMLink application it's unable to write out its own preferences files. By default, these are written to the same directory as the DSMLink application executable. Apparently Vista doesn't like that and in some cases flat out refuses to do it. The result in those extreme cases is that you're asked whether you've got a 1G or 2G ECU every time you bring up the application and none of your preferences (COM port selection for example) are preserved.
To fix this as well as several other little “Vista-isms”, it's suggested that you run DSMLink in Windows XP compatibility mode and select to run it as administrator. XP compatibility mode can be selected by right clicking on the dsmlink.exe file and selecting “Properties” then checking the XP compatibility option.
EDIT: Does the previous suggestion of running in XP compatibility mode actually fix this datalog location problem as well?
Vista prevents programs from writing to the real Program Files directory, where DSMLink writes logs by default, by instead writing to a shadow directory: c:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Dsmlink\runs. You'll find the physical files you capture there. We suggest explicitly writing logs to your own directory under your user directory. You can use the small “…” button next to the filename text area on the main screen for this or you can do a File→Save As and simply navigate to the new directory where you want datalogs saved from then on.
The Java virtual machine under which the DSMLInk application runs is not compatible with the Vista Aero (CPU hog) interface. Vista disables the Aero interface while DSMLink is running.