So I found Civ 4 lurking around the house today and had to play it. However the last time I played it was on my old XP. I have a Vista now and it's not compatible with Civ 4. I just wanted to know are there ANY ways to solve this program. 

Two solutions spring to mind. How partial are you to Vista?

Get a copy of XP, and downgrade to XP (you may have difficulties with this, I know I did when I downgraded - if you try this option and run into difficulty then PM me)

Dual boot linux - this is a better option if you want to keep Vista
Create a partition of about 20gb (less if your harddrive is small)
Install ubuntu on this partition - http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download
Install wine, a handy application that allows you to run windows applications
Install Civ4 on this partition.

Yea, CIV4 doesn't work in Vista (I stopped playing once I got vista) but there might be a patch on their website. Check there.

"there are ways to get the game to run on Windows Vista.

I called take2 support and this was their response. It worked for me and it is easy.

Take 2: Please try the following

To run the game in Windows NT Compatability mode.

- right click on the shortcut for the game
- left click on properties
- click on the Compatability tab
- tick the box called "Run this program in compatability mode for"
- select Windows NT
- click on apply
- click on ok

Run the game again "

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Will_Civilization_4_play_on_the_new_Vista_operating_system_and_if_not_what_do_you_need

Thank you, Google, my super secret answer finding program that no one else my use! >_>

Or, alternatively, install one of the expansions. That'll solve your problem as well.

Thanks everyone, Chichiri's solution looks good

Try patching the game.

Im running it on both Vista 32/64 bit no issues. I didn't use compatibility mode.

Mine... runs on Vista...

perfectly actually.

Wow I bought the game and haven't played it yet. Hope it works on my new PC since it runs vista.

If you guys can't get it running on vista, I suggest going to apolyton or civfanatics and checking through the forums over there.

there is a patch, it comes with any one of the expansions, that makes it work on Vista. Just get the expansion and install it and you should run fine. If that is not an option I'm sure that same patch can be downloaded from Take2's site.