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TheAngusBurger

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 30, 2008
93
0
Just curious what would happen if you got a virus on the Windows side that wiped your hard drive-Would it destroy the Mac side too, or would that remain intact?

I have enough common sense to avoid viruses anyway (SiteAdvisor, yay), but I was just curious.

-Teh Burgeh
 
if you install Windows on a seperate partition using Boot Camp it will only affect the Windows parititon.

if you install Windows using a virtual machine with either Parallels or VMware a virus will only affect the virtual hard drive which is a file on your Mac's hard drive/partition (if you have Boot Camp)… BUT Mac OS X does not understand Windows exceutables so it will not affect your Mac, even if the virtual hard disk resides on your Mac's hard drive.

this is a common misconception for new Mac users. i know my brother told me not to install Windows on my Mac as i would just get viruses again which is exactly what i was trying to avoid... but i sorted him out hehe :)
 
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