Can you use a wired 360 controller for visual boy advance

Yes, you can!

All you have to do is connect the Xbox 360 wired controller to a USB port.
After you have connected and installed the 360 controller, open up Visual Boy Advance.
From there, select (at the top) Options > Joypad > Configure > 1.
From there is it pretty self explanatory...

One tip though: for some reason when I configure my 360 controller, it takes a second for it assign the button to what I want it to do, so after you input your selection, wait a second, otherwise, if you are pressing the button again when it moves on to the next button to configure, you will configure the same button to do two things.

FOR EXAMPLE: You are configuring the joypad input for "up".

You press the analog up on you 360 controller, and the Visual Boy doesn't register it for a second, so you press up again. Chances are, the visual boy would have moved on to 'down' while you are still pressing up on the 360 controller, so now it is mapped as up on the 360 controller being up AND down on the Visual Boy.

As long as you aren't retarded, it is an easy fix (and I am probably confusing you more by explaining it all) but yeah, in short, it works great!

Have fun with the VBA!

P.S. If it helps, I am running it on my laptop with Vista Home Premium Service Package 1 with no problems what so ever.