I wasn't able to post this on Simwardrobe's support forum. He doesn't update or support that forum any more, and for all I know he's disabled posting.
I decided to post this information in a couple of other places. I can easily imagine someone with this problem searching this forum for help.
On to the problem. If you try to run the NPC replacer with Vista, it may crash. Vista is missing a dll the program needs. If you have 32 bit Vista, use his instructions here to fix the problem.
http://s3.freepowerboards.com/simwardrobe/simwardrobe-about27.htmlIf you have Vista 64, you need to do something slightly different.
1. Download dx8vb.dll from the above link.
2. Copy dx8vb.dll into this folder - C: -> Windows -> SysWOW64
3. Open the Command Prompt as administrator:
Click on Start menu -> All Programs -> Accessories ->
Now RIGHT CLICK on "Command Prompt," scroll down and select "Run as Administrator"
4. It will probably ask for your permission to continue, click on "Continue"
5. Type this in the Command Prompt box:
regsvr32 C:\Windows\syswow64\dx8vb.dll
Press enter
Notice those are back slashes \ not forward slashes /
You should get a message saying it finished sucessfully.
Technical notes
Vista 64 bit uses the System32 folder for 64 bit dll's, because Microsoft is crazy. Sorry, I mean, for backwards compatibility.
SysWOW64 is for 32 bit dll's.