Hi guys Ive been thinking about purchasing VMware, I am currently using WINE but there are some programs that cant be run on WINE.
The thing I want to know is wether VMware is a win32 in linux on which Win32 progs can be installed, or if VMware is an emulator on which I install Windows to run it from within windows ( and then I install my progs to that virtual Windows OS )

VMware emulates the entire computer (so you install a guest OS (Windows in your case) onto it) although it uses some wierd and wonderful magic kernel module and other trickery to speed up execution.

vmware is perfect for all desktop jobs except graphic intensive stuff like games and screensavers

VMware is a virtual machine which is different how emulators work. With VMware you are able to use devices like com, parrallel, usb, NIC with out anything getting in the way like emulators. VMware virtualizes a computer system, so you can install any 80x86 OS. The OS will work just like it will when run natively. I suggest trying out VMware first. VMware 5.0 is capable of running 3D games, but it is in the experimental stages.

look into codeweavers office crossover
depending on the apps wine won't run

Actually guys I do not want to play games with VMware, I want to use it for some University specific programs which only run on a windows platform.
But as I get it , I will install VMware on my linux box and then I will use it to install MS Win within the Linux OS, after that I install my apps into the windows virtual OS... is that right ?

Before buying VMWare, why not try QEMU, possibly with the accelerator module?

You are right about installing windows within Linux.You can download and use it for 30 days here:
http://www.vmware.com/download/index.html#eval
But wouldn't it be easier to just dual boot?

Qemu works great, save yourmoney on vmware and spend it on something better

Actually I will try Qemu, but about dual booting I really wont to try using a Linux system for all my tasks, Iam hardly trying to get really familiar with Linux and Ive like what Ive seen so far. But using a dual boot system would always make me go back to XP, and XP is such a bitch cos it is so easy to use "maybe because Ive been using it for so long".Iam trying to use a solo Linux box.

I do not think QEMU or QEMU Accelerator has support for com ports, parallel ports, USB, and Firewire. VMware supports these devices down to the low-level, so the hardware can work the same way as its native environment. VMware is better and more reliable than other similar programs.

I suggest using a computer with atleast 512 MB of RAM to get good performance in VMware because it uses some for video ram.

Like crashmeister said, try VMware for 30 days. If you like it and see your self using it more in the future, paying $189 or $199 for it is worth it unlike paying near $300 for Windows. I'm a student and I think the price of VMware is steal for what it does.

Uhh, to use it legitimately you need to purchase a copy of VMWare and Windows. However I assume ALinux already has Windows since he's been using it before his recent transition to linux.

I'm not sure how the other products mentioned work, but one thing I liked about VMware when I tried it was that you can redirect the VMware session just like a typical X forwarded session.

I had it installed on a central Linux server and could use any live boot CD to get a client OS and X forward that VMware host to my under-powered client. The Windows "box" ran at the servers speed even though my client was a wimpy low RAM diskless machine.