Hey, I was wondering if there was a way to run Windows in a window on Linux, like VMware, but for free. I have WinXP installed on one partition, and Linux on the other.

Is this possible?

I think that there is a program called Xen that is supposed to do something like this, not sure if it can run MS due to licence restrictions etc for more info look here
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/
or google
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=xen...-GB:unofficial

hope this helps
J

QEMU is an emulator/virtualizer. With the optional QEMU Accelerator you can get performance similar to that of vmware. The accelerator is freeware, not free software. QEMU is free. There is also bochs, which is only an emulator and fairly slow.

What if I wanted to run the version of Windows I already had installed? Is that possible? I only have the version of XP that came with my comp, and its hidden on my recovery CD. Also, I don't want to have to reinstall things.

Anyone?

The version that came with your computer is most likely tied to the vendor specific BIOS on the computer. If you run VMWare, the virtual machine sees a different BIOS.

I'd say there's a pretty good chance your recovery CD will not work in VMWare. And you won't be able to use an image of the Windows installation either.

I thought I had already replied to this post. well, maybe I just dreamed about it:

First things first: What are you REALLY trying to acomplish.

Unless you are just playing around with the specific purpose of doing something that noone else has done, you likelly have an specific problem you want to solve:

- Do you want to run, from linux, programs that are already installed in Windows for which you don't have the installation media?
- Do you want to run windows and linux programs side by side?
- Do you want to open documents in a particular format from within Linux?
- Are you a developer testing cross plataform applications?
- Do you need to test a networked application and only have access to one computer?
- etc.

If you explain your REAL requirement it will be easier for us to help you.

Of course your real requirement may be to do just what you are asking for just because 'it sounds like fun', but I really doubt it maybe just because I can't see what usefullness that may have (Other than the learning experience).