Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/11/26

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Windows viruses on Macs
From: harrison at mcclary.net (Harrison McClary)
Date: Sun Nov 26 06:55:13 2006
References: <200611240300.kAO2wsmL061480@server1.waverley.reid.org> <E415F506-C3A3-4FA8-8EE9-E46CF68CFCDD@optonline.net>

I do not know how vulnerable it is from experience, but in the 
instructions for Parallels it says:

> Parallels Desktop for Mac runs the guest OS in special virtualized 
> environment that emulates separate computer. This virtualized computer 
> is as vulnerable to the viruses as a usual PC running Windows. We 
> highly recommend that you install some anti-virus software and 
> firewall in the guest OS.
> Please mind that although computer viruses and similar malicious 
> software can't affect MacOS X itself, Shared Folders content which is 
> accessible from Windows side can be corrupted so you shouldn't store 
> any important data there (or back it up regularly).

I only run Parallels for a few windows programs, like frontpage, that I 
see no reason to get the Mac version of. I do not connect to the 
internet with it, just use it for local files.




Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:
>
>
>
> Brian,
>
> With Windows running in Parallels, the viruses have to get through the 
> Mac built in firewall first. Remember that in Parallels, Windows is 
> running on the Mac OS. Not so for Bootcamp. Here the Mac is directly 
> booted into Windows and is vulnerable to all Windows malware. At our 
> university, we have been running Windows XP in Parallels on Intel Mac 
> 17" and 20" computers using OS 10.4 for 6 months and have yet to be 
> infected with a Windows virus.
>
> Larry Z


-- 
Harrison McClary
Harrison McClary Photography
harrison@mcclary.net
http://www.mcclary.net
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http://www.imagestocksouth.com
Tobacco Road: Personal Blog:
http://web.mac.com/whmcclary/iWeb/tobacco-road/Blog/Blog.html 


In reply to: Message from lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin) ([Leica] Re: Windows viruses on Macs)