Ipod on a VM

OK, so Vista and my Ipod are not playing well together...at all. See my post on photo syncing.

My thought was to use a Virtual Machine to run XP and then through network shares accomplish a shared file directory for my stuff.

I can get the VM up and going. Itunes installs fine, but I can not find a VM that supports the iPod.

Innotek's Virtual Box supports USB and Firewire, but it will only pick up my printers (and then it hoses the host's USB print drivers).

I like the idea of using the VM machine and then using shares to make iTunes run on XP while not redoing my whole computer.

I have not tried VMWare, but it costs $$$. MS Virtual PC won't support USB at all.

Any ideas out there?

Any other work arounds for Vista?

Or better yet, any actual solutions to make the dumb thing work with my blessed iPod?