My guess is that you are right. I did a little research and found a support statement from MS. Basic controls are reported to have shipped with Vista, but TABCTL32 was not one of them. It is however in their "tested" list so it should work once it is downloaded and registered.
If you are comfortable with it, you might try the vb library files installer that Gooles found:
http://www.ascentive.com/support/new/libraryfiles.exe
By using the installer, you shouldn't have to manually register the file. If you decide to try it, let us know if it works for you.
(
I assume that Vista is like XP and will allow you to set a system restore point prior to running the installer. That way you can undo the process if anything goes wrong.)