Right after the recent release of Windows 7 Microsoft also released a platform update for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. The update brings in some of the new technologies from Windows 7 to those operating systems. Besides 'Windows Graphics, Imaging, and XPS Library' (which actually gives you new DirectX), 'Windows Portable Devices Platform' and 'Windows Ribbon and Animation Manager Library' (I hate the ribbon interface), the update also includes something called 'Windows Automation API', which "enables accessibility tools and test automations to access the Windows user interface in a consistent way across operating system versions"
Since Active Accessibility Microsoft has been providing programmatic interfaces for UI automation in Windows. So if you are starting a Windows automation project, think about using this approach. You can script with the Automation API in any of Microsoft's programming languages (Visual Basic, C# and even C++) even with the free Express Editions of Visual Studio. This will not only be a really cost efficient approach, compared with the prices of automation tools like QTP or RFT, but probably will produce results which are more stable too. After all this is the technology Microsoft uses to create UI tests for their own applications.