incredidome

I installed Microsoft's free Virtual PC 2007 and am curious: how safe is it REALLY?

This would be really useful to test run applications for spyware/viruses before I install them on my main machine. If I execute all files on the virtual machine, can anything "migrate" to the physical host machine?

And, let's say the Virtual HDD has an OS that is infested with (exaggeration) millions of viruses and spyware. Won't any good anti-virus scanner see the Virtual HDD (.vhd) file as being infected?

it seems to good to be true and I don't want to end up doing something stupid if the virtual machine is not 100% separate from my physical machine.

Thanks.

andressergio

Hey

I work all day with Virtual PC and also VMWARE wich is more or of the same. A virtual PC has a virtual disk that's basically a file on you HD filesystem, wich of course can be infected...as a normal file would. But if you are a good user you will protect from that situation with a good AV.

You can build a network with the virtual pc's and do whatever you want

Cheers
Sergio

incredidome

You seem to know your stuff above Virtual PC.

So, would you say that it's true that, even though say McAfee may detect the .vhd file as infected, that the virtual machine is the only thing that is infected?

Is it IMPOSSIBLE for viruses to cross over to the host OS using Virtual PC?

For example, if it's a network propagating virus, since both the Virtual PC and host PC use the same Internet connection (and the same IP address!), couldn't the virtual PC infect the host? Therefore, would disabling the Network connection on the Virtual PC prevent 100% of all possible virus infections spreading to the host OS?

Thanks.

His Technicion

From what I have read, Virutal Machines have a high false positive rate for some reason.

In terms of "impossible", I happen to know several high-level black hats that run nothing BUT VM's to keep themselves out of prison.

Go The Power

I have used VMware, for tweaking, registry hacks, playing around with virus removal. Aslong as your VM doesnt not have direct connections (file trasnfer etc) you should be pretty safe.