I logged in as Administrator and uninstalled NPS.
I then logged in as my wife and right-clicked the NPS installer's *.exe and picked "
Run as administrator".
Both operations seem to go without a hitch. The result is the same; still getting "
Running Module Failed" and NPS fails to startup when NPS desktop shortcut is double-clicked by a normal user.

But I made at least 2 moves that could cloud the issue:
1.) I did not reboot between uninstall/install or after the install. Not sure if this matters, but I later realized that the removal and installation of the drivers could require reboots.
2.) During the uninstall, I opted
NOT to have the phone data, I had previously imported, removed. I noticed this did not maintain the NPS options/settings, so the issue may be moot, but . . . .
I really hope to figure this permissions/priviledges thing out. Installing stuff on Vista is such a pain sometimes.
I'm off now to mess around with TKFE. I can't wait to get the full and touch screen Google Maps working.