windows and linux on same partition

I have a new pc and 32′ monitor.
is there a way that I run both windows and linux on the same monitor and be able to access files stored in one operating system from the other and vice versa.
is this possible without dualboot and running one OS on virtual machine?
Thanks.
Answer #1
Yes and no. You do need a virualization software, but you can run windows from the guest os inside the host os w/o switching. VMWare (Player Pro or Workstation) calls this feature “Unity”, VirtualBox calls it “Seamless Mode”.
Answer #2
You can’t have two OS running at the same time without virtual machines. You can access files from both systems. For Linux from Windows, you need to have Linux partition you want to access with an ext filesystem and you need the drivers. There are good program that let you access Linux files on Windows. To access Windows files from Linux, you need the fat or ntfs tools or kernel support. You can read and write with fat but you have to enable write access for ntfs. By default writing in ntfs is disabled because the support is not stable as writing on fat and can have unexpected results. Read access has no problems.
Answer #3
, this is very helpful, I have more clear idea of what to do now. Thanks alot.
Jack_Torrance, thanks to you too.