Kevro2000,
I unwisely bought a laptop with Vista installed, same time frame. I eventually "forced" Win7, and the primary issue was drivers (especially video), along with some control issues for onboard hardware (audio). Apparently some parts of Vista continue to reside in the system of the computer, in ways that cannot be uninstalled or overwritten. The point being, I don't think you'll end up ever having a fully stable setup on a revamped Vista machine.
In another direction, I have the same issue with a Win 7 desktop, with an NVIDIA card, and from time to time, I have to roll back the driver, including re-downloading and reinstalling the legacy driver, to make it stop. (yeah, next time, I'll archive that particular driver.)
My suggestion would be to "un-update" the driver and try some legacy versions.
P.S. I have an 18i20 and love it, very stable, versatile. The setup on mine was only challenging because of the MixControl software, and it has been replaced on the 2nd Gen 18i20s with Focusrite Control, which is a far better/easier program to work with (I was tempted to sell my 1st Gen and get a 2nd Gen just because of the software differences, although there are other significant improvements as well). What I believe I'll end up doing is making my 1st Gen a "standalone" and lightpipe it into a new one, either a 2nd Gen 18i20 or a Clarett USB, and have all those channels to play with.