I am playing with Microsofts Virtual PC. They have made the VPC simple.
One question tho: While playing on this VPC if it gets infected with a virus can it move to my host PC?
Virtual PC
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RubberDuckie
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RubberDuckie
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FlyingPenguin
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As Zyfer said, there are caveats. Since the VM is sharing your network, if the VM is infected with a virus that infects through the network (a worm) then it can potentially infect other computers on the network IF they're susceptible to the explot the worm is using. Worms are fairly rare and you aren't likely to infect the VM with a worm since the worm would have to get through your router. Sure, you COULD somehow download a worm that then propagates inside your network, so you need to be careful. Those of us who fix friend's and clients computers at home have to be careful - I have a separate router isolated from the main house router that I connect client systems to just to be safe.
The best defense for this in your case is to just make sure all other computers on the network have their firewalls enabled and have the latest Windows Updates installed.
The other concern is you don't want to move or share anything from the VM. If you drag and drop an infected file from the VM to your desktop, or copy it to a shared folder on the network, then of course, are now putting any PC that you run that file on at risk.
I use a VMWare VM as a sandbox for testing suspect software and for safe browsing. In VMWare you can store a "snapshot" of the VM and configure it so that when the VM is shut down, the current state is deleted and replaced with the last snapshot. This way even if I was infected with something during that session, it can't persist - the next time I run the VM it will be reset back to the known clean snapshot. This means I can't have anything persist in that VM since that snapshot could be months, or years old, so I don't bother installing an anti-virus app or any Windows Updates in the VM. I do browse with Firefox in it.
While VMs can be very secure, they can also be cumbersome. They use a lot of system resources, and it takes a while to boot up a VM. Matter of fact my "safe browsing" VM is running Windows NT and Firefox. Only needs 128 MB to run, and it's such a lightweight OS that it loads wicked fast.
Another option you may want to explore is a rather excellent sandbox application called SandBoxie. It's not as secure as a VM, but it's a lot more light weight. It allows you to create a sandbox and you specify what apps can run in the sandbox. Anything running in the sandbox can only read data from your computer, it cannot write data (not to memory, files or the registry) instead all writes are virtualized and stored in the sand box's file folder. You want to nuke any changes made in that session, you just delete the folder containing the vitualized files.
The best defense for this in your case is to just make sure all other computers on the network have their firewalls enabled and have the latest Windows Updates installed.
The other concern is you don't want to move or share anything from the VM. If you drag and drop an infected file from the VM to your desktop, or copy it to a shared folder on the network, then of course, are now putting any PC that you run that file on at risk.
I use a VMWare VM as a sandbox for testing suspect software and for safe browsing. In VMWare you can store a "snapshot" of the VM and configure it so that when the VM is shut down, the current state is deleted and replaced with the last snapshot. This way even if I was infected with something during that session, it can't persist - the next time I run the VM it will be reset back to the known clean snapshot. This means I can't have anything persist in that VM since that snapshot could be months, or years old, so I don't bother installing an anti-virus app or any Windows Updates in the VM. I do browse with Firefox in it.
While VMs can be very secure, they can also be cumbersome. They use a lot of system resources, and it takes a while to boot up a VM. Matter of fact my "safe browsing" VM is running Windows NT and Firefox. Only needs 128 MB to run, and it's such a lightweight OS that it loads wicked fast.
Another option you may want to explore is a rather excellent sandbox application called SandBoxie. It's not as secure as a VM, but it's a lot more light weight. It allows you to create a sandbox and you specify what apps can run in the sandbox. Anything running in the sandbox can only read data from your computer, it cannot write data (not to memory, files or the registry) instead all writes are virtualized and stored in the sand box's file folder. You want to nuke any changes made in that session, you just delete the folder containing the vitualized files.
Christians warn us about the anti-christ for 2,000 years, and when he shows up, they buy a bible from him.
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Key Keeper
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