Hi Steve
Forget about working in Safe Mode, & get things working normally. Safe Mode is not in any way designed for everyday use: it's for troubleshooting and system maintenance.
Trying to run a program like Ventrilo in Safe Mode is just not a good idea. Not sure that I'd recommend a program that doesn't officially support Vista either. But it can be made to work, with Vista booted normally. If there are specific games that you'd like to get Ventrilo working with, visit their forums for specialized tips for each game. For general setup, it helps to have the main executables set to "run as administrator" (it generally helps to right-click and select this when installing software not explicitly written to be compatible with Vista --- select "run as administrator" for the installer, too).
Other hurdles are getting your firewall settings squared away - but that's fairly basic stuff. I would imagine the connection issues you mention are related to firewall setup. Check out the help files if you are using the built-in Windows Firewall --- it's fairly simple to set up exclusions for traffic to be unblocked for certain sites and servers. (I'll assume the trouble was in your firewall setup, and not in the setup for a hardware firewall in either a router or a gateway device with a router built-in = because you were able to connect from "Safe Mode with Networking"). If you've a third-party firewall, refer to the manual for guidance -- router setup is easier today than ever.
Best of luck
. . . Gary
PS .. for some examples of tips for getting Ventrilo to work in Vista, here are some links from various gaming sites:
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http://www.vistax64.com/vista-games/...icrophone.html
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http://vnboards.ign.com/gawaine/b20708/106050326/p1/?11
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http://www.vistax64.com/vista-games/...mes-vista.html
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http://www.vistax64.com/vista-games/...icrophone.html