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I don't know how to keep safe!

markjones05

markjones05

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 15, 2003
935
0
Brooklyn, NY
I am getting a new macpro come friday and plan on using bootcamp to install windows xp on a seperate hard drive. The thing is I have been using macs for so long I have no idea how to keep a windows machine safe from spyware, viruses and the like. Can anyone tell me what the must haves are in order to keep my machine safe? Is it possible for a virus to spread from my windows installed hard drive to my osx hard drive?
 
Osarkon

Osarkon

macrumors 68020
Aug 30, 2006
2,161
4
Wales
You're going to need a firewall, (although xp has one built-in, it only monitors traffic one way), a trusty antirivirus (I recommend AVG, it's free and works fine), an anti-spyware program (ad-aware and spybot will do), and common sense;)

Viruses can in theory get onto your mac partition, but they can't do anything because they won't work on a mac! :D
 
yellow

yellow

Moderator emeritus
Oct 21, 2003
16,018
6
Portland, OR
I didn't think you COULD install Windows XP on a USB drive and boot your using it/BootCamp.
I'm almost positive that you can't do it on a firewire drive.

markjones05 said:
Is it possible for a virus to spread from my windows installed hard drive to my osx hard drive?
Click to expand...

Pretty much no. Windows cannot see/read/write to HFS+, so no virus (unless VERY specially crafted) can effect your OS X install.
Someday.. but not now and unlikely in the near future.
 
apfhex

apfhex

macrumors 68030
Aug 8, 2006
2,670
5
Northern California
Osarkon said:
(although xp has one built-in, it only monitors traffic one way)
Click to expand...
And which was is that? I know it monitors outgoing traffic and it would be pretty useless as a firewall if it didn't monitor incoming traffic, so...
 
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