Creating a development Environment SharePoint 2010

Hi

I want to install sharepoint on my laptop for developement purposes. I'll probablly have windows7/8 in the laptop when purchased.

The idea is to have a dual boot system, one for the orginal win7/8 and the other into a virtual machine. Then install SharePoint onto the virtual machine.

Previously I've used esxi but dont think this will work in the manner mentioned above. Will VMware workstation provide a solution ?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks