Are these windows compatable?

Yes. FS2 runs on XP, and is known to run on Vista and 7 as long as there is not too much RAM (that is, 2GB or more). Or was it 4GB? Nah, I'm sure it was 2GB. If you do have 2GB or more RAM and want to play FS2, I'd direct you towards FreeSpace Open ( http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Getting_started#The_FreeSpace_Source_Code_Project ), which, in short, is a modified version of the FSO game engine. Among all sorts of cool things, it can also deal with large amounts of RAM without issues. And it makes it possible to enable significant graphical improvements made by the FreeSpace fan community at Hard Light Productions.
If you have questions about FreeSpace Open, it would probably be better for you to visit http://www.hard-light.net/forums/ , as there are more active people there, ready to answer any and all questions.

A little late to posting this, but I have been enjoying FS1 on Windows 7 64-bit for a while now. I have waaaaay more than 2GB of RAM, so no issue there. The only issue I have noticed so far is the ever so slight graphical glitches within the in-game text. But it won't be noticeable to anyone who never played the original version.

The "original" Freespace 2 (with no modifications from FreeSpace open) run under windows 7 if you set the compatibility of the executable in "Windows xp".
With the modifications there is no problem.