Kickoff Not Working

Hi all,
I was just about to migrate from Windows to Linux. I tried the installing a dual boot with an opensuse 10.3 gnome. It worked quite well. I am, however, having two major problems.
1) I cannot boot Vista, when I choose windows in the start up menu, it just starts a really old fashioned linux installer. An I cannot get any further? But leave this problem for now, I will be quite happy if I can solve this problem instead:
2) I cannot access the kickoff menu. When I press on "computer" in the lower left corner, just big white window opens. I tried restarting aso nothing worked! What to do?
I'll be quite happy and very thankful for any answers!
/Hans

Sorry for spamming. I solved problem 2) by installing openSUSE again. Probably not the smartest solution, but it worked out. But how do I fix the problem 1) I think this might be the wrong topic for this question, so I asked it under "boot/install" as well. You can delete this thread if you like.
/Hans