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As most people do,when I started using Linux, I created separate partitions for Linux and used Lilo or Grub to boot either into either Windows or Linux, according to the different job requirements. I normally used my laptop PC during the day in a company that used Windows applications in a Windows based LAN and therefore I normally had to boot in Windows during the day to work with my colleagues whereas at home I would boot mainly into Linux. This approach has a few disadvantages as follows: My work e-mails were in Microsoft Outlook and I had to boot under Windows to access them. I used KMail (and later Mozilla Thunderbird) for my personal e-mails and I had to boot under Linux to access them. I could access Window folders from Linux and copy data from Windows, but I could not access any Linux directory from Windows. I reached the conclusion that there should have been a better way to use my PC and I looked for a solution that would allow to access both Linux and Windows applications without rebooting. I investigated some of the available products. I found that the wine or CodeWeavers Crossover supported most common Windows applications, but some other ones would not work. VMWare looked interesting, but I preferred to use until recently Win4Lin (originally developed by Netraverse to support only Windows 95, 98 or ME and later upgraded by Virtual Bridges to support also Windows 2000 and Windows XP) but this product is no longer upgraded and supported,
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