Antivirus a good idea with Parallels?

[Touringman]

I have just bought and installed Parallels as I need to run a few Windows only apps (Updater for Speed Camera Detector, Garmin GPS software and memory maps nav software.)

Anyway back in my PC days I had a bad experience once with a virus and from then always had anti-virus software (and anti spyware, malware etc)

Is this kind of protection required with Parallels? - or will OSX protect me (I will always be running XP in a Window only)

Many thanks

Tim

[mrkramer]

You will want virus protection on the windows part, that will still get viruses, they won't affect the rest of your computer though only the windows part.

[dukebound85]

of course. it is running windows which means viruses can be a problem. i reccomend avg

[flopticalcube]

avast is good too. If you have a firewalled router or have turned on the firewall in OSX, you don't need one in Windows (unless you are using the OSX one and running bootcamp).

[ksmith80209]

I highly recommend ESET's NOD32. It is super fast, uses almost no resources, and is very effective (used to use it on my windows machine).

[thunderbolt]

There is an option for installing Trend Micro at Parallels 3.0. I think its good for protection. Plus using some anti-spyware software like spybot would be better. I don't know if trend micro has anti-spyware support.

Edit: It doesn't matter even you use it fullscreen. Windows is good old windows you know, crawling with viruses and spyware.

[ivi7]

Since your going to be using Windows you will have to be cautious and antivirus is a must. There are many options available but you can choose the one your comfortable with.

[Touringman]

Thanks for the responses - I have downloaded Avast - used to use this on Windows and seems to do the job.

New Question :

I was about to pay up and get an activation key but with back up CD this amounts to nearly £60 in the UK!

The full retail boxed version is available with education licence for £33 or £40 for full licence on Amazon UK

Anyone know if I buy the full retail version will I have to install again or can I just use the activation/licence key that is presumably in the box?

- don't want to install again as I have just got XP up and running and re-installed the windows apps I need!

Cheers

Tim