I started working with Windows with version 1.0 back when EVERYONE was sure that Windows would not be a success. Working with Windows from the very beginning, it required little effort to keep up to date on how to manage it as my operating system.

In the spring of 2001, my work computer developed the typical problem that I would get about every six months that required a format and reload to fix. Faced with reloading all my applications and patches once again, I got fed up and decided if I had to spend the time I would load Linux. All my working applications were in Windows and if I ran a dual boot system, I would not gain anything. I looked for a solution and found VMware that allows you to run Windows on a Linux machine as a virtual machine in it's own window. It seemed to have the best support for what I needed so, I got it. I was lucky, VMware was better then I ever expected at solving my problems with Windows.

VMware stores the "hard drive" of the virtual machines in a set of files. All you need to do for a COMPLETE backup of a VMware virtual machine is to make sure the virtual machine is not running and copy the files to a backup hard drive. I had problems with Windows backups because you could backup your data files but I was never able to backup the complete system unless I used Norton Ghost to make an image of the hard drive. Ghosting my hard drive was to much work to do every day so, I had been getting by with backups of my data files until I started using VMware. I am still doing virtual machine backups by a simple copy command to my file server three years later.

No one was paying me to work with Linux so I took it slow. At first I booted to Linux, loaded my Windows virtual machine and did all my work in Windows. I found that I had gained more than backups. After several years without the need for a format and reload of my virtual machine, I decided that a lot of problems that I had with Windows in the past were caused by the way Windows interacts with the computer looking for new hardware. Because the hardware was virtual in VMware, my virtual machine is running in a very clean environment and three years later, I still have not had the need to format and reload a VMware Windows system.

In 2002, I was finding it hard to keep up with patching all the Windows security holes and had found out that the security in Linux was much more robust than Windows. I found Star Office so I could move my word processing to Linux and I installed Netscape for email and web browsing from Linux. It was not long and I had stopped using Windows to browse the web and was able to secure Windows behind a firewall and stop tracking all the patches needed to secure it. I am still moving from Windows to Linux a little bit at a time in 2004. Every month, more of my computer time is in Linux. I still have some software that requires Windows like the Corel Graphics Suite so I don't expect to stop using my Windows virtual machine any time soon. It looks like there is growth in the Linux desktop and by the time I am ready to drop Windows, I might find that software vendors I want to use are supporting Linux.

For me, VMware was the "killer application" that made the move to Linux a positive one.

It is a fact of life that my DVD cam corder and my computer games require drivers that only work if the computer is booted to Windows directly. I use good monitors and keyboards that add considerable cost to my systems because I spend so much time in front of a computer. One day I noticed that you can get a hard drive boot selector so you can select which hard drive you want to boot from. To use my DVD cam corder, I have a hard drive in a system that runs Linux most of the time loaded with Windows that I can select with a switch and boot the machine to Windows.

In my checkered computer past, I was a computer tech for a few years so I build my own computer systems. Once I had the idea that a lot of my system cost was in the monitor and keyboard, I got to looking and bought a Belkin 4Port Omni Cube so I can run four computers with one monitor and keyboard. I have three machines connected to the Omni Cube at this time. A printer/file server running Linux (this is where my backup files are stored). I have backup workstation with Linux that is setup and ready to run in case my primary Linux workstation has a breakdown. I can boot the backup workstation, copy my files from my file server and be up and running with it about 15 minutes after a major meltdown. I also have a machine I setup just for computer games in Windows 98 because it is easy to break a system loading games and with a dedicated system, I can do a quick format and reload if I have to. I feel a little silly at time when I look around my office at all the computers but I only get a machine about once a year on average and the cost is small compared to being out of work (not making money) while I am fixing a broken system.