If cygwin doesn't cut it, there is an application called vmware that
lets you create virtual machines on a single box.

I've seen one instance where an application running on a virtual machine
with win2k installed (physical machine was linux) actually ran faster on
the virtual machine than it did with win2k installed on the physical
machine. Doesn't make much sense, but there ya go.

virtual machines let you experiment with all kinds of OS stuff without
trashing a "production" machine. I've had virtual machines with win2k,
redhat 7.3, redhat 9, solaris x86 all on one box without shutting down
the native OS (which happened to be mac OS).

The biggest difference between virtual machines and dual boot is that
you can have 'em both running at the same time.

-j