From what I have heard (as were a MS partner) its going to be supported untill 2012 or there abouts (4 years after SP3 comes out), so theres a while yet, I'm cirtanly in no hurry, heck I think win 2000 still supported.

Chris will know more ablut this than me.

Ive got vista running under VM ware on my desktop and tbh I've not had any problems with it, Its resource hungry but as long as your PC's up to the job I think its pretty stable, althogh I've not really done that much with it (I was testing networks out) so I cant really comment.