Better Dual Boot

Running Windows XP or Vista and your favorite Linux distribution on the same computer is great. That is, until you're in the middle of a lot of work in one OS, and need access to a program that only runs on the other OS.

Thankfully if an Ubuntu user has this problem, they can fix it by following the directions in these two posts on the VentureCake site:

15 Minutes to using your existing Windows install & apps in Ubuntu

10 minutes to run every Windows app on your Ubuntu desktop

 

But what are Windows users to do? Well, you can simply enable hibernation on your computer and then you'll be in the land of dual boot bliss.

XP users can enable hibernation by going to the Control Panel, clicking on Power Options, click the Hibernate tab, and check the Enable Hibernation box.

Vista users  can click Start, and type in powercfg.exe /hibernate on then press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to run the command as administrator. if your have UAC active, then you will have to approve the action.

Now to switch Operating Systems, put your computer on into hibernation, then bring is back from hibernation and select your Linux distro from the boot menu

Boot in to Linux, and have fun. To return to windows, restart and choose Windows from the boot menu and Windows will resume from hibernation!

 

note: You can't access your Windows partition or Windows hard drive from Linux if you use this method.

Update: You can access all of your Windows files simply by mounting your Windows partition as read only. To do this, open up a terminal and run the following command:

sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /media/Windows -o ro

If you have Windows installed on the first partition of your first hard drive, then the command will mount your partition as read only and you should see a drive icon on your desktop for that partition. When working with files on your Windows partition, remember that it is mounted as read only and that you won't be able to save files directly. If you have EXT2/EXT2 drivers for Windows installed (available here is you don't), then you can save any edited files to your Linux desktop, and then move them once you boot back in to windows. If you don't use EXT2/EXT3 for the file system in Linux, then you can just save the edited files to a flash drive.