It's reassuring to see that people have given the thumbs-up to my solution. Confirms for me that my line of thought is sound.
THANKS EVERYONE for your input! :-)
On 04/19/2016 03:58 PM, Brian Cluff wrote:
> I'm a big fan of running a hybid environment exactly the way you describe. It lets you have you cake and eat it too, and will work
> for 95% of everyone out there.
>
> Additionally to what you described I would, at minimum, setup his home directory as a shared directory onto the Linux side of the
> setup, then once you have everything on the windows side setup exactly the way you like it take a snapshot of the way things are and
> have him run off the snapshot.
THAT is exactly what I had planned since it gives him a way to get files to and fro both systems.
Then when things get really nasty you can discard the infected snapshot and then immediatly take a
> new snapshot of everything in pristine condition, saving you hours of work.
>
> You might also want to consider not setting up a network on the windows VM unless it's strictly needed.
VM MUST have network access.
> That will prevent the VM from being used for the everyday tasks
Everyday tasks will ALWAYS include BOTH sides.
when he should be using the Linux part of the computer. Maybe setup a firewall so that the
> machine can only go to certain places if the network is used.
>
> Lastly, and most secure, if you can get away with it, you can set the VM's hard drive as immutable.
What a COOL idea! My first thought is that I will not be able to because the environment WILL need to change, but I like the
thought. I'll devote some braincells to the concept just to make sure. THANKS!
That setting will take a
> snapshot of the VM every time it starts, but on exit the snapshot will be thrown away along with any changes/infections. That will
> leave you with a pristine system every single time and the system will stay clean and work perfectly forever.
Just so (I) am clear on this: A VM setup this way cannot get winblows updates either... correct? It would literally be frozen in time.
This only works if
> the software doesn't require regular changes to it's config. If you would like to do this in virtual box, the GUI does not yet
> allow you to set a VM drive as immutable, so you will have to use the vboxmanage tool to accomplish the setting.
>
> Of course none of this will fly at all unless this person is completely willing to deal with the differences and learning curve.
> Unless they completely buy into it, I wouldn't waste my time... an answer of "I guess I'll try it" or anything wishy washy like that
> will just end up with you having to reinstall the machine to windows. You need an answer of something like "I'm willing to do
> whatever it takes to make my computer run smoothly all the time."
>
> PS, if one of his pieces of software that he can't live without is quickbooks,
NOPE, no quickbooks or anything else that will choke in the network share scenario.
keep in mind that you can't store it's
> config/database on a network share, which is what the shared folders on Virtualbox look like like to windows. For Quickbooks, just
> create a second Virtual Hard drive for the system who's only reason for existing is to hold the quickbooks database.... just make
> sure you don't set it to immutable :)
>
> Brian Cluff
>
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