I have been dual booting Windows + Linux for a long time but that has been a pain. Since Windows is my primary environment, I am unable to work on my Windows apps every-time I boot into Linux. I require both Windows and Linux to be available to me side-by-side so that I can conveniently experiment with Linux whenever I want to. In this article, we will find out how to easily run multiple Operating Systems at the same time, in a single machine.

• A decent computer with at least 1GB RAM (more recommended)
• VMware Player software
• Your favorite Unix/Linux CD or iso file; for me, I will use Ubuntu version 9.10 but this article works for any OS, any version

1. Visit the VMware Player download page
2. Click on Download
   
    
3. At the time of this article, the latest version of VMware Player is 3.0 => click on VMware Player 3.0 at the very bottom of that page to continue. If you happen to see a newer version, simply download the new version.
   
    
4. Locate “VMware Player for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows” then click on Download.
    
5. VMware would then prompt you to signup “Register for your FREE Download” on the top right. You need to register for an account in order to download. VMware will send you an email with an activation link. Note: it may take several hours for VMware to send out the email. For my case, it took around 20 hours
    
6. Once you have your VMware Player downloaded, simply double click on it and install.
    

How to download Unix/Linux:
In this article, I will use Ubuntu 9.10. Ubuntu is a very popular, stable, secure and very easy to use Linux Operating System. It is based on Debian and is ranked the top OS of all Unix/Linux OSs.

1. To download, visit ubuntu.com and click on Download Ubuntu
    
2. Under Download location, select your location (country) then click on the big green Begin Download button to begin your download.
   
    

1. Start VMware Player: Start => All Programs => VMware => VMware Player
    
2. Click on Create A New Virtual Machine
   
    
3. Selecting your media: If you have your Unix OS in a CD => select Installer Disk
   If you have your Unix OS in an iso file => select Installer disk image file iso
   For this article, I will use Ubuntu 9.10 ISO file.
   
    
4. Click Next then enter your login information. This is the login you will use to login to your Linux OS.
   
    
5. Click Next then enter your Virtual Machine name. I recommend entering it as “Ubuntu 9.10″ or the name of your Linux OS so that you can easily recognize the OS at a later time.
   
    
6. Click Next then enter your Disk Capacity. This is the maximum hard drive capacity limit you set for Ubuntu. I recommend 10Gig of disk space or more.
   
    
7. Press Next then press Finish to begin the Ubuntu installation. Once the installation is finished, to start Ubuntu, simply double click on Ubuntu 9.10 under Home
   
    
   
    

[Note: A more detailed instruction can be found on this post: How To Run Multiple Operating Systems At The Same Time]

My laptop is pretty old and slow :/ so I am looking to install Ubuntu onto my desktop, running Vista. I have done dual booting before but that is not what I really want to do since with dual booting, I can only use one OS at a time. Because my performance is best under Windows, I want to be able to use both Windows as main and multiple other OS for learning at the same time.

I have heard of VMware long before which provides something about virtual environment so I headed over to vmware.com. After several hours of reading there, I found the product that best matches my needs: VMware Player (Free).

This instruction set provides instructions to install Ubuntu 9.10 using VMware 3.0 in Windows Vista.

1. Obtaining VMware Player: Visit their download page and download VMware Player 3.0.
    
2. Once downloaded, double click on the downloaded file to install.
    
3. Once install is complete, restart your computer.
    
4. Obtaining Ubuntu: visit ubuntu.com and download Ubuntu 9.10, if you have not done that already. You can either a) burn Ubuntu onto a CD or b) just leave Ubunto on its own .iso file
    
5. Now start VMware Player (start => all programs => vmware)
    
6. Click on Create A New Virtual Machine
    
7. If you have Ubuntu in a CD, check Installer Disk and select the proper CD drive.
   If you have Ubuntu in an .iso file, check Install Disk Image File (iso) => then Browse for the location of the .iso file.
    

   In this tutorial, I use the iso file to install.
   
    

8. Once your iso file is selected, click next to enter your login information
   
    
9. Follow the next a few screens then begin your installation
   
    

The VMware Player 3.0 Easy Install is pretty useful but in certain cases, we want it disabled. Inside VMware Player settings, there is not an option to disable Easy Install so here is a quick trick/tip to by pass:

1. First start VMware Player
    
2. Create A New Virtual Machine
    
3. Select the option “I will install the operating system later”
   
    
4. Once done, your new virtual machine will be added to your virtual library, under Home.
   
    
5. Double click on your new Virtual Machine to start it.
    
6. It will next say the OS is not installed and provide an option to insert the OS installation media.
   
    
7. Simply click on Change CD/DVD Settings to select your media then Restart VM!

Hope you like it!