Live Sound Help Please

[irrelevant2787]

I dont know much about home recording. I do a decent amount of it on my desktop pc, but I keep it as simple, and stripped down as possible. Just using cool edit and reason, not looking to do any professional production.

I recently purchased a new laptop for school and web surfing and such. A Toshiba Satellite A215-S7437. While I know this laptop isn't in the slightest sense meant for recording music, I like to dabble around with the guitar on it. Only problem is, Im not hearing live playback. I can record with cool edit, and play it back no problem, but no live sound. On my desktop pc(running xp), I just use a 1/4" to 1/8" converter, and plug my guitar straight into the microphone jack on my speakers. I get live sound without any playback software. Not so on my laptop(running vista).

Is this a sound card issue? laptop issue? Do I need software? Or has vista just made it a difficult task to enable such a feature? Because the whole recording/playback options layout is different than on XP.
Any help/suggestions is greatly appreciated.