I have a laptop with Vista on it.

There was info in the September 2016 eZine about which operating systems accounted for the most session counts. At that time Windows Vista (32 bit) represented 0.0001% of the total session counts, and Windows Vista (64 bit) was even less. 

An Adler typewriter from the 50's is still better than Vista.

I liked VIsta when it was current. I wouldn't go back to it though. Windows 10 is a far better OS in every way that matters and some that don't. 

If you did ALL the updates to Vista, it essentially became Windows 7 (although it took hours and hours to do all the updating). However, it still lacked a few key elements that I think affect the ability to run SONAR 100%.

I am still using Vista 64 on my general purpose PC (which used to be my DAW) back in the day it was big step up from XP because I could use 12GB of RAM.

I have WIN10 on my DAW but I am happy using Vista on the old PC.

I avoided Vista.  Stayed on XP, until jumping to Win 7 at XP end-of-life.
 
Developers cannot be expected to support end-of-life systems forever, so that is always going to make it necessary to step up if you want to run current applications.  Or you could just run Sonar 8.5 forever ... 

I remember having to make exceptions for Vista in the project I worked on.
Additional work didn't balance the (tiny) demand from Vista users.
We eventually didn't support it at all.

subtlearts
Other than my father, are there more than 6 people in the world still running Vista? 

My father-in-law is one of them.
 
He wouldn't know SONAR from SONOR from Schooner.

Anderton
There was info in the September 2016 eZine about which operating systems accounted for the most session counts. At that time Windows Vista (32 bit) represented 0.0001% of the total session counts, and Windows Vista (64 bit) was even less. 

So John has not upgraded yet?