Wow, sorry to hear you've been getting the shaft so hard, my friend. It sounds like you have one of two problems. a) You don't have all the drivers installed, or b)something is not working right in compatibility mode.
greenskeeper is right, here are the steps to do it with 64-bit Vista:
1) When you get your new phone, turn it on and plug it into your computer (that has an active internet connection) so it can automatically download the driver. You probably already have this, but this is a "just in case"
2) No, with the phone still plugged into the computer, go into your phone's Start -> System -> Data Connection. Say ok to the little pop-up box and change the phone setting to 'As a modem hrough USB'. This may or may not install another driver (depending on whether you already have it). If it doesn't install anything on your computer, skip to step 3. If it DOES, however, let it finish and then re-boot your computer to finalie installation
3) Turn off your phone (completely!!! not just asleep)
4) Download a utility called UDML (you'll need this later anyway if you plan on using a custom ROM from one of the chefs here). You can get UDML
from this post (called UDML Omnia V2.3)
5) Download the CF03 .img file from
this post, and then follow the instructions in the same post
Viola! You should now have a working phone (finally
)