Mac/PC virus

[hndn]

I just purchased a mac mini + parallel 5, planning to install windows 7. I know Mac does catch virus but if I run windows within it, do I need any antivirus software? I currently have a white MB that runs parallel but from time to time, I wonder if I ever get virus.
Thanks.

 

[Bennieboy©]

i wouldnt recommend putting anti-virus software on there,

main reason, it'll lag like theres no tomoro,

my solution on the other hand would be, put spybot search & destroy on there and malwarebytes anti-malware, thats what i used to use, they dont eat system resources and ya run em once a week, clean computer 😉,

 

[flopticalcube]

Download and install Microsoft Security Essentials. Its fairly lightweight and very effective.

 

[CylonGlitch]

The PC side (running within Parallels) can get a virus, just like any other PC. What you should do is to do no web browsing on the PC side, just on the Mac side. It will be MUCH safer. But if you download things an run them on the PC side and not use it for apps you've purchased then those apps can have virus' in them even and you can be infected that way. I have never heard of a virus that can jump from the PC to Mac; mostly because they run different executables.

With any thing like parallels or fusion you can copy the image and use that as a back up. Thus if the image you're using gets infected, you can just copy the older version back and not have to restart from scratch.

 

[Gav2k]

+1 for windows essentials. It's lightweight and very effective on a fresh install.

 

[Gabriel GR]

I used win 7 RC for several months with only the built in antivirus and didn't have the slightest problem. There was a time with XP that as soon as you got online your computer had a virus. It's good that we've left that behind.

 

[hndn]

Thanks all. I installed windows essential. New thing to learn everyday, in this forum especially 🙂