I plan to install 14.04 on my laptop,and then install Windows 8.1 inside a virtual machine (not yet decide which software for virtual machine).
When I install 14.04, do I need to create some ntfs partitions for Windows (one ntfs partition for installing Windows, and another ntfs partition for storing personal data files which can be shared between Windows and Ubuntu)?
Thanks!
No, you do not need to create any NTFS partitions. If you are going to install Ubuntu on your laptop and then install Windows inside a virtual machine, you do not need to create an NTFS partition to install Windows nor would you need to create an NTFS partition to share personal files between Ubuntu and Windows.
For the installation, what the virtual software does (for example: Virtual Box or VMWare) is it creates a file (with an extension of .vmdk or .vdi for example, depending on what software/option you use). That file acts as the "hard drive" for the virtual machine. The file is created and stored on your host operating system (your Ubuntu), so it doesn't need an NTFS partiton. If you want to think about it another way, "inside" the file itself is an NTFS filesystem, that's what the virtual machine uses, but you don't have to worry about that at all.
For sharing folders, the virtual software you use gives you an option to share folders between the host and guest OS. When you "share" a folder, your Windows machine will "mount" it as if it was a file server, so it doesn't need to be an NTFS partition either. Take a look at this page and this question for more information on how you do this folder sharing.
