Hmmm. Thanks.

Well, I shrug is off because I never use emulators and don't know anyone who does and have never seen anyone use one.

If I want to run Linux, I boot in Linux and when I type on my XP laptop, I don't see any need to emulate Linux and when I am on my OS X I don't need to emulate.

Likewise, I don't emulate Windows on Linux or OS X.

That's just me. On the other hand, I am not forced to work in .NET. I would never do that

Glad you find emulators useful.

PS: You still have not convinced me to install an emulator on my XP laptop :-) I am open... please convince me :-)

Actually, I wouldn't use Windows + Cygwin unless I could avoid it, which is not the case at work. It's somewhat notably slow.
I find Linux + Windows on Virtualbox more productive, and that's what I use on all my personal machines (but then I don't work in .NET outside work).

It's all about having access to your favorite tools no matter what platform you're running, and also in the most comfortable way.
If you miss any Unix utilities, and can't or don't want to replace Windows, then give Cygwin a try; it's very mature, stable and complete, albeit a bit slow.

Yes, I understand but normally I don't do much on my laptop, just install software using the standard MS installer packages, use MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint and surf the net, maybe user a few other tools like CloudBerry.

I guess I am not smart enough to know what to do with a Linux emulator on XP, LOL

What can we do? We can't run the find command and change owner and groups can we, since XP does not have users and group the same as Unix and Linux systems. I don't need to VI when using XP. I don't run servers on XP, only Linux. The filesystem is completely different, isn't that right?

So, at least for me, "When in Roman do as the Romans" "When on Linux, do at Linux" and "When on XP, do XP"......

Anyway, nice try, but I am still unconvinced to install Cygwin on my XP laptop !

Any anyone has a good reason to do so, please convince me