On Sun, 2014-05-11 at 19:36 -0400, Doug wrote:
- If I do, is XP still subject to viruses like it was when it stood
alone?
Yes, it would be. The virtual machine acts as a "virtual machine." It emulates an actual machine as much as is possible. So what runs, runs, including malware. You can install to it, etc. Which should answer this question:
2a: If so, can Windows malware-killers be downloaded and used?
An advantage (just one of many), to using virtual machines is that you could set up a virtual machine, and make several copies of the image it uses. You use only one of them. If it gets stuffed, you simply dump the damage one, and copy one of your unadulterated back-ups into place. Giving you a very rapid recovery method, so long as you didn't care about keeping any contents you'd saved between the initial creation of the image, and when you stuffed one up.
I would not use XP on the wild internet, any more. The risk is strong, and no real solutions will be around. A *disconnected* XP box in an office that's used as a standalone computer, can keep on running until the machine fails due to old age. It'll have the same faults it always had, but couldn't be exploited remotely. And I do mean disconnected, an XP box on a LAN that isn't being actively used with the internet is still exploitable.