Delayed sounds in Vista Ultimate

I have two problems actually.

1. The sounds are delayed, ie if an alert window pops up, the sound is
played a few seconds after it has shown, not while it is actually showing.

2. The second problem may be related to the first one. And sorry if it
sounds stupid I am a devoted mahjongg player - Vista has this mahjongg
thing that is working fine, but I prefer Kyodai Mahjongg for some reason.
Now, kyodai worked fine on my old machine with XP Home installed on it. IT
does not work on Vista though. Firstly, if the background music is on and I
click on a tile to move, the game freezes, the sound stops, then the tile
moves, then I hear the sound for a moving tile and then the music starts
playing again. I know I can turn the sounds off and play the game, but that
is not the idea - I would like everything to work just fine.

Any ideas how to fix it, or is it just the way it is? Was buying Vista my
biggest mistake and waste of money?