13" MBP - Vmware 5 + CS5.5 Security?

[Reg88]

Hi,
With the help of the people on this board I went ahead and got a 15" MBP and I LOVE It. My windows laptop just surrendered (after many, many years of fine service) and it's time for a new laptop.

Getting a 13" MBP for the road (what the laptop is for) would work -- except for the fact that I have CS5.5 on the PC. I already have 2 Macs (it didn't' take long - LOL) and those are the two machines I use for my CS6 cloud subscription.

So I see 3 options:
1. Convert the CS 5.5. to CS6 OS X at cost of $375 (ouch)
2. Buy another license for the CS6 (@ $50/mo - ouch)
3. Get Vmware + Windows and use what I've got ($150 -- fair enough).

My concern is that if I start the whole windows thing again (which I honestly don't want to do), then I have to worry about proactively locking-down windows, which frankly,after all of these years, I'm tired to doing.

If I install fusion and windows on OS X and use CS 5.5 (light use) what is the best way to insulate the install? Because I store a lot of the data in the cloud for my team, internet access will be necessary.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[Ledgem]

If I install fusion and windows on OS X and use CS 5.5 (light use) what is the best way to insulate the install? Because I store a lot of the data in the cloud for my team, internet access will be necessary.

The #1 thing to do is to protect the Mac side. VMWare allows you to specify which directories are shared between the virtual machine and OS X, and allows you to adjust permissions (such as whether a directory is read-only, or whether the virtual machine can also write to it). Limit what folders you share with Windows, and if you have to share an important directory to access files from the Windows side, make it read-only where you can.

You can easily switch the internet access on and off to Windows through VMWare, which is a feature you may want to make use of. Definitely keep the internet off after you first install Windows, and only enable it once you have your security software installed (a firewall, at the very least). You can disable the internet while doing work that doesn't require the internet, enable it for Cloud access, and then shut it off again if necessary. Procedures like that may be overkill as long as you don't install tons of programs besides your Adobe products and don't do web browsing through Windows.