security on virtual machines

harleynut97 · 24 Sep 2011

Hi I'm considering getting a virtual machine program. My physical machine runs windows 7 home premium and the virtual machine would have windows XP pro as the operating system.

I'm considering VMware for the virtual machine software.

On my physical machine I am running McAffee suite provided as part of my dsl service.

My questions regarding the virtual machine are...

1) do you need an additional antivirus program running on the virtual machine, or would the antivirus/firewall on my physical machine protect the virtual machine.

2) If the answer is you need antivirus on both the physical and virtual machine, will there be any conflicts running the same antivirus program on both machines?
Thanks for any thoughts and suggestions - Carl

richnrockville · 24 Sep 2011

Welcome Harleynut97 to the windows 7 forums.

Re your virtual machines, They are as vulnerable as your physical machines. They are just like your physical machines and do require their own AV product to be installed.
What program are you using to create and run the Virtual os'S??

Rich

harleynut97 · 24 Sep 2011

I'm considering VMware8 workstation and would be running only 1 operating system, Windows XP . It makes sense that you need it on both virtual and physical.

pparks1 · 24 Sep 2011

Yes, you need to ensure that VM's are safe. If you dont' take them on the Internet, they probably are.

With regards to VMware Workstation, that's a $199 piece of software. Have you instead looked at all at VMWare Player? That's free. I use the enterprise vSphere stuff at work, and VMWare Player is good enough for my personal needs.

harleynut97 · 24 Sep 2011

I'll be sure to look into the player version... so from what you read on my post, the player version would meet my needs... primarily running older programs/plugins that are not compatable with windows 7 on a virtual machine running XP. I would have the need to occasionally move some of the outputed files (mostly avi's, tiffs,pngs, jpgs.) to the physical machine.

Thanks for the recommendation PParks, I'll be sure to check it out. - Carl