Question about Windows on my MacBook

[McNoob]

I used Boot Camp to install Windows on my Mac, but I have a question... If I accidentally get a virus on my Windows partition, would it affect my Mac OS X?

Also, I am planning to buy Parallels...it seems very convenient and easy to use...but the same goes for Parallels...would it affect my Mac? Also, can someone give me a review on Parallels? How it works and is it worth buying.

I have a white 13 inch MacBook 80 GB HD, 1 GB Ram, and Mac OS 10.4.8.

Help...and thanks a bunch!

 

[Ric]

Hi there,

at the moment there is no way a virus can cross from the Windows Side to the OS X.

Even if it could it would be a '.exe' file which wouldn't run within OS X anyway.

I would still have antivirus software running on the PC Side though.

I have used Parallels it's very good, but it's possibly an extra expense. At the minute all you have to do is Restart and you can be in Windows...for free.

Maybe someone else will be able to give a better review of it...

I think it all depends on what you want to run, Games and higher end PC software would be better running natively (ie reboot into Windows) than running via Parallels.

regards

Ric

 

[Rebooted]

I agree with Ric...you want to have virus protection on both operating systems...especially if you are moving files between the partitions.

If you move an infected file from one partition to the other your OS most likely will be fine, but you could transmit an infected file to another user.

Meaning, lets say you get a virus on the Windoze partition and it infects...say...a Word document. Lets say you didn't realize the file was infected cause you don't have any virus protection on the Windoze side. You then move that file over to your MacOS partition and then e-mail that file or give the file to another user. Doing this...just infected the user you sent the attachment to and/or file.

As for Parallels...I've been using it since it was in it's beta testing stages. I would highly recomend it. Especially, the newest version as it makes the transition to Windoze apps almost seamless and transparent...and way faster. See, you can now run the MacOS and copy over Windoze apps shortcuts to the desktop...and run them without having to "start" Parallels or reboot your machine(almost simillar effect of running apps as the WINE project is hoping for). Now, you can click and drag documents from one OS to the other or use the "shared" folder and access your docs that way. Yeah, it's worth the extra cash.