I use VMWare to provide online classes for
www.newhorizons.com I'm the Senior Systems Engineer worldwide for them. VMWare is a fantastic product. grab Workstation 3.0 and have a go at it. You might want to try Connectix VirtualPC too just so you can have a view of both.
There are trial versions available for both products.
Dual booting is a breeze if you let Lilo handle the chores, and if you have two Windows OS's and one of the is '98 or ME (9x) then you HAVE TO install the '9x OS first and let NT capture the boot sector. If you install 9x last it will grab the boot sector and never see the NT install again.