I recently upgraded my music pc (which stays offline), and decided to give virtual box a try rather than just install everything directly on the hd.
Now I was wondering if the virtual box is only meant to test something, after which one is supposed to install the software on the hd itself? Or can I just leave everything inside the box and make music, save projects, etc etc in there?
After all, seems a tad tedious to have to install everything twice.
And if one is supposed to install first on VB to test, and then on the actual HD.. do you install/test really everything first on the VB?
Also if so, wondering how one is to find if there is any hidden malware in the installers, etc? Because if its hidden, then its hidden ofcourse and wont just wave ..yo here I am?
Any other thoughts and insights regarding VB are welcome as well..

Sorry if these questions are too stupid to be true..as I said ..noob questions
Cheers for any useful insights and replies!

 

First I'm going to say: very smart move to install VirtualBox! I find it invaluable and irreplaceable piece of software. You can do fabulous things with it! Instead of answering your questions maybe it's better to just explain how I use it.

I have it installed both on my main computer that has Linux Debian x64 v8.4, Windows 7, and Windows XP on it, and my laptop. I use Windows exclusively for working with audio. I often use Debian for browsing [I generally use my laptop also with Debian for browsing the Internet] and I have VB with W7x64 and WXPx86 virtual OSes in it, for testing the installations and making my custom installations, if possible. Example: I download some new software from AZ and install it either in W7 or WXP in VirtualBox. In many cases you only need *.dll files which are VST plugins to make a custom installation. Sometimes you need to include some files from "my documents" or "Users [files]", or some registry keys. By transferring these files manually to your main W7 installation you avoid any malware and filling your registry and HD with useless "uninstall" crap. Windows speed is quite sensitive to registry size, so installing plugins this way keeps the registry much cleaner, and therefore Windows work faster no matter how many plugins you've got.

How do you recognise malware and viruses? Just look in the "task manager" for suspicious, new, and unknown processes. But to tell you the truth I never look. I just install what I need, copy the files into my main OS [Debian in my case], RAR it, and close the VirtualBox. You don't have to worry about malware or viruses when inside the VB. ;) When you close it, everything you've done in it is lost. But remember to take a "snapshot" of the OS in VB before doing anything you could regret. Otherwise you'll have to install the virtual OS again.

I also have VB installed on my laptop in Debian essentially for doing the same thing. I use this laptop simultaneously with my main computer for music making, so I also have W7x64 on it that never sees any Internet either. It is used for additional VST DSP processing with Reaper's fabulous Reamote, and it runs the mixer/settings app that controls my main audio interface TC StudioKonnekt 48.

Only insane people will use Windows for Internet these days, and there are shitloads of insane people. Don't be one of them.
Read my sig...

 

Last edited: Apr 8, 2016

Virtualizing is great, no matter if you're using Vbox or VMware.
A good idea is to do a fresh OS install, add the most basic tools you always need to the VM, then after shutting down the VM, compress all its files into a rar or zip file.
So even when you forget to do snapshots before, you always have a clean state to unpack. Simple and effective.

@SineWave: What's your experience with audio latency in a VM?
Mine is not so great - although it's not too much of an issue as long as I'm not playing instruments live over a MIDI keyboard.

 

Yes, the latency is bad in any VB OS. In virtual W7x64 it is important to remember to disable the Windows effects called "enhancements" for the audio adapter you use, and use ASIO4All, or better FL or Steinberg generic ASIO drivers. But I don't care about the latency in virtual OS that much since I don't use it for doing anything serious, usually just testing if a plugin is worth installing or not.

To tell the truth, since I use Reaper for everything I just have it set up to use WASAPI in virtual W7 and disable those Microshit "enhancements" that add an additional layer of processing between the audio card driver and the audio output. It works fine for previewing plugins. If I don't disable those "enhancements" I get crackles at any latency. So much for "enhancements"...

 

Last edited: Apr 8, 2016

@SineWave you seem to really know your way around that stuff, so I'm sorry to deviate a bit from the OP question, but I also have one question. I only have my desktop, I will soon or later use some of my spare parts to do another setup, a 100% linux config to go online (I'm thinking more ubuntu, I've used it a while back), but right now I only have the one config with w7, I havn't a dual OS setup, I'm always too lazy to reboot to use another OS, etc.
But I have sanboxie and virtualbox running on my system, is it safe enought to browse, test softwares, etc through these ?

 

Sure, Talmi. Many of my clients prefer to have W7x64 for music and I install Debian in a VirtualBox for them to browse the Internet with. it's a perfect combination!

I must admit I'm not too fond of restarting my systems just to boot into another OS either, but having two computers helps.

 

Thanks for your answer. I'll install a linux distrib in my vb, then that should do the trick. The second desktop will soon be done, and it will be really better, this way my music w7x64 computer will always be offline, no more sweat over all those viruses and privacy problems.
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge with the noob crew !

 

Cheers @SineWave, @fiction and @ArticStorm
Don"t have so much time right now, so might be back later with some more questions.
Just this one still for now.. I guess to transfer things manually again from guest to host... Ill have to allow bidirectional traffic? Right now I only have traffic allowed from host to guest.

 

There's one more benefit to having a VirtualBox installed on your W7: you can safely disable your main network adapter since VB creates a virtual one that some plugins can use for authorisation. ;) Waves and Korg plugins springs to mind. So when you're installing audio software just disable the main network adapter and leave VB virtual one enabled. That way you will have a network adapter that these plugins can use for authorisation, but you're not connected to the Internet and they can't call home! When you need to browse the Internet, just enable the main network adapter and start your VirtualBox OS.

 

Thanks for the replies @ArticStorm and @SineWave .
But no, no shared folders

Read in an article about virtual box on howtogeek

''Once you’ve selected your solution, there are a couple of things that you need to keep in mind:

• Don’t Enable File Sharing: If you are testing out some shady software in a virtual machine and it ends up including malware, you don’t want to run the risk of the malware spreading to your host PC through a shared folder.
• Don’t Use Bridged Mode: Most of the time the default for a virtual machine is to hide it behind a virtual NAT (network address translation) network that keeps the virtual machine at least partially isolated from the rest of the network. What you don’t want to do is use bridge mode, where the virtual machine connects directly to your main network.
• Don’t Use Your Regular Accounts: It should go without saying, but if you are using Windows 8 you shouldn’t sign into the virtual machine using your regular Microsoft account. The same goes for Google or any other accounts. If the freeware contains some type of spyware, you don’t want it to be able to get access to your accounts.''