16G cruzer not working with Vista, can't log on

With my Compaq laptop and my 16g cruzer that worked with this machine until three days ago I now get this message instead of a password screen— ‘This version of windows is not supported by the U3 launchpad’, and it won’t let me log on to either of my 16G cruzers or my two 8G cruzers (it’s Vista home premium as OS).  It says that it will work as a flash drive unless I have set password protection on it from another machine.  I set Password protection on these drives from this machine and it looks like Vista is out to ruin my life.   HELP!

Best I can suggest is to try an XP machine.  If it works there remove the password and then try the Vista machine again.