I'm sorry for the question but until somebody asked me I had not thought abuout it. Is it possible to switch between linux and windows without restarting the computer?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

This requires something like VMware--or any of several free "virtual machine" programs. The May edition of Linux Journal has a cover story on this.

Pix, I haven't read the article myself, but I imagine even with VMWare you can't technically unload one operating system and then load another one in like the original poster is saying.

In a word...no

Installed Win98 under VMware player on my FC5 box last night using a virtual machine created at http://www.easyvmx.com/ .

Yes, you can't "switch" between the host and guest operating system (in that you don't free up host resources when you use the client). However, in practical terms for what most people are interested in, it works much that way... both can be "running", and/but you switch between them for KBD/Mouse input, etc. at any given time. No underlying HW reboots but you can reboot the virtual machine if/as needed. Two OS environments operational at the same time. What is amazing is that both OS get access to machine interfaces like CD drives, sound cards, etc. - cool!

Another great side benefit is that the guest OS is installed in a virtual machine (VM) which is effectively a simple file structure, so it is supposedly able to be backed up and restored, etc. instead of reinstalled. No need to lose all your setup work when changing host OS... your guest OS (VM) can simply be copied over and run in the player on the new host OS.

With virtualization, they are both running--just as you can have your WP and your e-mail client running. It is not a question of unloading one and loading the other.

if yu get te soln
plz tell me
in my views its not psbe til date

There is also some new technology they are working on that will allow multi-core processors to run each OS on a different core.

That would be cool DanTaylor. I have a toshiba laptop with two h/ds I swap in and out. On one I quad boot XP,ME,SARGE,and KNOPPIX 3.7. The one I have in now has XP and SuSE SLICK. I just got thru trying Sylabse in VMWARE Player on XP and I am intrigued by this technology. At present I am d/l the Debian netinstall iso and I am going to give it a try in the Player.

Isn't that pretty much what the so called "cell" processor is supposed to allow too?

Also, in response to this question... if you happen to have a spare machine, have Linux installed on one, Windows on another, and use a spinning chair to switch quickly between them. Viola!

Took a while. Installed sarge, minimal. Posting this with lynx. Fun!
Switched back to XP and Opera in about 10 seconds and edited this post. I may never partition a hard drive again!

didn't you made a partition? Did I understand correctly???????

A kind of alternative

Cooperative LinuxPort of the Linux kernel that allows it to run cooperatively
alongside another operating system on a single machine.
http://www.colinux.org/

"A kind of alternative." As I understand this I used Qemu to make a 10 gig "virtual" partition that is used as needed. I am still feeling my way around this but the potential is amazing. I can have XP open with DragonNaturalySpeaking and AutoCad running and a simple CTL+g puts me back in Debian. An added benefit is that where on my other h/d I had not gotten Sarge to see my wireless usb device(DWL-122) the Player with Sarge as a guest OS does use it.

Qemus and Kqemu are very good:
one can have as many linuxes as space allows, each in virutal partition,
within one main linux installation.
One drawback I found of qemu is that, say if you put DSL
in a qemu virtual partition, then from DSL you cannot see the rest
of the HD (not simply anyway)