Early adopters of Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system report that computers running the OS will not play songs legitimately purchased and downloaded from Apple Computer's iTunes music store without some finagling.

"So I updated to Vista today. iTunes seemed to work fine with it, except for one thing: Whenever I try to play one of my purchased songs, I get told that my computer is not authorized," wrote Chunleela, a poster on Apple's iTunes message forum.

Chunleela reports that entering a password into the iTunes application on the desktop doesn't solve the problem. "I try deauthorizing and reauthorizing, closing and opening iTunes, restarting the computer. Nothing works," wrote the poster.

In a posting Wednesday, Moon Park blogger Nick reported the same problem. "I just upgraded to Vista. I love it, it's fast, smooth, and aero is pretty cool. My one gripe so far is iTunes isn't supported," wrote Nick. "Well, it is and it isn't. You can play music, but for some reason I can't authorize my computer to play all my purchased stuff," the blogger continued.

In an e-mail to Nick, an Apple tech support worker acknowledged that iTunes isn't yet compatible with Vista. "Unfortunately, the iTunes application does not currently support Windows Vista," wrote the Apple rep.

"Apple hopes to have a Vista-compatible version of iTunes available soon, and will update the iTunes download page when it does," the rep continued.

In the meantime, bloggers on a number of sites reported a workaround that solves the problem. Users can get iTunes to work on Vista if they right click on the iTunes.exe program, select Properties, click on the Compatibility tab, and check "Run This Program As An Administrator."