I've got a wired 360 controller that I use for driving games and stuff like that on the PC. With vista you just plug it in and away you go... no drivers or anything are required.
Btw Dave... if you want, there are better third party drivers for the controller available for download. You will just have to serach for them, but they are called XBCD (I have v1.07 on my XP box) and they are MUCH better than the Microsoft "official" drivers.
~Sol