Just bought my first Mac and found out a software important to me does not have a Mac version. They recommend installing a PC emulator like VMWare Fusion. Are there unexpected side effects from this?
Does an emulator or a Virtual Machine make me vulnerable to PC viruses?
Yes Virtual Machines are safe. I have not seen any unexpected things. You must install a good anti-virus program in Windows. Windows Security Essentials available from Microsoft is good and free.
Parallels, Fusion, or VirtualBox are all Virtual Machines that will work. They do not emulate Windows. You buy a retail version of Windows and install it in the Virtual Machine.
In virtualization, there are 2 "computers" involved.. the host and the guest. The host in your case is your MacBook Pro running Mac OS X. The guest will be your virtual machine running Windows. You can, for most purposes, think of these as completely different computers (despite the fact that the guest operating system is effectively running as an application under Mac OS X).
So when it comes to viruses, your Windows PC (the guest) will still be vulnerable to PC malware, but your Mac (host) won't be. You will still need to install PC based anti-virus or other malware protection into the Windows PC that's running on your Mac. I use Microsoft Security Essentials on my BootCamp installation of Windows 7. The software will work identically on your virtual installation of Windows. You can download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security_essentials/default.aspx
Just as PC malware won't run under Mac OS X, your Mac is safe from any malware that finds its way into your virtual Windows PC.
For your Vindows virtual machine, yes. Just install some security. If your PC VM does become infected your Mac will be fine.
Are PC emulators safe?
