xp mode and virus? and image?

[Maxheadroom]

if xp mode gets infected with a virus can that virus move to my win7 installation?

can you take an image of xp mode or is it a case of taking an image of the whole system that contains xp mode as if xp mode was a program installed on win7?

thanks

 

[Jonathan_King]

An infected virtual OS should not affect the host OS.

A system image of the host OS would also backup the virtual OS.

Also check out this tutorial: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/21904-virtual-xp-machine-copy.html

 

[Maxheadroom]

excellent thank you JK
so xp mode would be an ideal place to test suspicious zip files?

 

[Jonathan_King]

Yes, a virtual machine is the best way to test malware and suspicious files.

 

[Kari]

A virtual machine is as any other computer in your network. If it's infected, it can infect other computers if the infected files are shared or other way used by other computers.

To create and restore system images in virtual machines works precisely as in any normal computer. However, the easiest and fastest way to do that with virtual machine is to make a copy of the vhd file.

To test malware in virtual machine, I would first copy the vhd. If something goes wrong, all I had to do would be to replace the original vhd with the copy.

Kari

 

[Maxheadroom]

i see thank you, so just make a copy of the
Windows XP Mode base.vhd
in the program files and keep it safe anything goes wrong with the original just delete it and paste the copy/backup back in?

 

[Kari]

If you use XP Mode to malware testing, make copy of both vhd's it uses. Base vhd in Program Files, and the XP Mode vhd itself in C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines.

Kari

 

[Maxheadroom]

thank you