I have a new computer with Windows 7 Professional installed
I have installed Norton Internet Security 2012 from my Norton Account and all is well-so far
As you will know Win7 Pro allows for a virtual machine to run inside it so that programs that are not compatible with Win7 can run in Windows xp
When I open the virtual machine I am informed that my computer is not protected although my Win7 is
Is there any way that I may add this virtual machine to my current NIS instalation, will I have to buy another copy or will I be able to download my current copy.
We are waiting for confirmation from Norton on whether installing Norton inside a VM uses a second activation or not -- they are checking this out to make sure since we now kinow that you only need one activation on multibooting machines with more than one Windows (or Mac) OS on them.
But you do have to install again inside the VM. The only question at present is on whether it counts as a second activation or not.
Do you have a 3 PC version of NIS 2012? If so do you need all 3 for other PCs? If not you can install inside the VM and I suggest you download direct from this Norton website since it will be more uptodate than any disk you may have and it does not use the download manager route which might not cope well with a VM (I don't know).
Did either computer have any other security software on it when you started downloading to install Norton 360? If so what is it; if there was and you removed it how did you remove it? Apart from the normal uninstalling nearly every security program has a special cleanup tool on its website that you can download and run after the normal install. Let us know first and we can point you to the right tools to use including one for Norton products if you had one installed -- like the trial versions that come on new computers. If they are identical to what you want to install now you may not have to clean up and we can tell you the shortcut.
Click on this link -- NIS 2012 This will download a single file of around 100 MB which you should save on your hard drive where you can use it again if necessary -- Do not select Run but use Save when asked and remember where you put it!
Hope that helps but keep an eye open for some more information about the activation question (let us know what you experience please) as well as from others with actual experience of VMs since I have not used them myself but just boot to XP when I need it!
A VM is a totally different hardware platform because it's all virtualized.
You can confirm that by restoring a system image into one, Windows quickly goes into a 3 day grace period for a retail license and forces an immediate activation for a OEM installation.
The hardware is all different, even though it may appear like the same CPU, it's filtered in a way that it becomes a single core.
If you set the VM to use the phisical LAN, the VM is actually just creating a bridge to it.
Thats just my thoughts, obviously I am not a Symantec employee.
Before you install anything, you need to figure out if you even need an AV.
It's not going to be able to get infected if it's not connected to the internet. Most people use XP mode to run legacy programs that don't work in windows 7. It's not like your going to be surfing the internet with IE6.
Even if you need to use a network connection to share files on a LAN, the default settings use NAT and with that and the windows firewall the chances of you getting a worm is close to zero.
Best practices would be to download anything to your physical system, then it is scanned by Norton. Then it is moved into the VM and that causes it to be scanned a second time.
I'm sure you could also set it up to share the entire virttual C drive and scan it from your phisical system, Norton can scan network drives.
This is an interesting topic since I am also running VM (XP Mode) under Win7 Pro. With NIS 2012 installed in Win7, is another a/v product even needed within the VM? I would think not, but I am no expert.
I will be following this discussion with great interest.
