I am on XP which does not have this issue, I think it seems that some of the colors are used differently in Vista than XP. Hopefully someone on Vista will be able to help. Looking in SkinStudio at the colors used the only dead white is the window background, I am not sure based on the other colors used where it is calling the white text from. I have even applied the Vista version on XP and with all explorer views I am getting proper text colors and highlight. The grey highlight in your pic is orange on XP. Maybe a corrupt skin download, change skins, delete Tiki, redownload and try it, if still have the same issue you will need to wait for someone with Vista skinning experience to help.