Hi Letha...BAH HUMBUG....VISTA. I feel your pain. Sometimes Vista does weird things for no explanation. You are lucky that it even works at all. I cannot really help as I do not use USB mics. I would suggest however that you insert a few seconds of silence at beginning of track to allow time to plug in USB etc. This can always be deleted post record. One other thought is to alter the sound recording input source option from the pull down tab. You never know it might be on the wrong setting for your USB mic.