Sharing data between linux system(s) and MS Windows XP

Is there an actual How-To or something like it about sharing data between linux system(s) and MS Windows XP? I do not think there is a golden path but
maybe a list of possibilities and their pros and contras would be fine.

As I understood there are different ways of sharing data (and so of setting the partitions)

  1. Accessing the data of a MS Windows (NTFS) partition from a linux system (contra: possible data loss/data corruption?).
  2. Accessing the data of a linux (ext3) partition form a Microsoft system (XP) (contra: possible data loss/data corruption?).
  3. Sharing a data partition (FAT ?) (contra: problems with large files).
  4. Visualization (contra1: If the main system gets broken, the guest is broken, too?; contra2: not so easy?; contra3: windows male ware in linux?).

*I am thinking about reorganizing my hole system of sharing data and of partitions (including my NTFS partition for XP data and FAT partition for data shared with XP and linux).

Now I am using mostly a FAT partition for sharing data but this seems to me not the ideal way
(for big files and especially because of data security).

I thought of making my /home partition bigger and use a windows program to get excess to ext3/ext4 from MS XP. I also thought of deleting my hole NTFS data partition and use only /home with document-folders etc. for each user / for the linux users and for the Mircosoft users. But this seems not so wise jet from I have read (at least not with an ext4 data partition):
[all variants] ext4 support on Windows XP - Ubuntu Forums](http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1181698)
Ext2read - View ext2/3/4 partitions from Windows*

Greetings
pistazienfresser

Linux does a better job at reading/writing to ntfs than windows does to ext3/4.
Best way is to use samba on your linux box to share data - as long as it’s not in a Windows active directory domain, you can also set up an nt4 style windows domain controller from the linux box.
The windows viruses won’t affect linux, since they only run on windows.

Easiest way is option 1.

Windows is hopeless at access to Linux, so do it all from Linux.

Forget FAT, it’s only used on pen drives really.

R/W to NTFS from Linux is a simple procedure.

Linux does a better job at reading/writing to ntfs than windows does to ext3/4.

Can windows even access ext4?

Defo NTFS is the simplest method and with the least possibility for loss IMO.

This seems a bit complicated to me or I do not understand it well.
Do I need an external/second hard drive in my lan / wireless lan / network for that? Or can I get access to an other partition on the same hard drive via samba?

Greetings pistazienfresser

(A bit) reading seems possible.
Ext2read - View ext2/3/4 partitions from Windows

Sunday, April 11, 2010 Ext2read 2.2 released. Now with LVM2 and EXT4 support
…]
View/Read Ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions.
…]
Ext4 Large File support (untested).

If you want to access Windows data across a lan then Samba,

If you want to access a Windows partition on the same computer then you mount the windows partition.