Installing VM on Win7 PC

I did a search and to my surprise couldn't find a thread on this topic. I would have expected there would be a number of discussions.

In any case, here's the situation.

I'm migrating from my PC#1 (WinXP) to PC#3 (Win7) and I'm losing the the TrueCrypt function. A current version of TrueCrypt has been discontinued (many comments and rumors as to why) and the version I had running on PC#1 will not run correctly on my PC#3 (Win7).

It was suggested that a possible solution would be to install VM on PC#3, password protect it and run those few programs that I had protected using True Crypt on the VM.

My concern is the O/S that I would have to install on the VM. I have a disk with WinXP (complete with 2 & 3 supplements?) but I think it's self loading and I'm afraid it would wipe out Win7 or at least damage it in some way.

I would also like any suggestions as to what VM I should install.

PC#3 (Win7) has 8 Gig of RAM, 265 Gig C: Drive (Used 50 so far migrating programs from PC#1) and have 170 unused. I guess the other 45 Gig is taken by Win7 and Recovery. System came loaded and don't have a Win7 disk.

Thanks for any comments, suggestions.

 

You could use either VMware Player or VirtualBox. Both are very capable, both are free. Personally I much prefer VMware.

As to wiping your disk that won't happen. In VMware when you create a new machine (yes, you can create as many VMs as you want) you are asked for the installation media, which can be either an ISO or a disk. Whichever you provide it will be installed to the VM's virtual hard disk, not to a physical disk on your computer. Your host system (win 7) won't be affected in any way other than losing access to some RAM when the VM is running, and to some disk space, according to how much you choose to allocate to the VM.

 

Virtual machines are run in a 'sandbox', they do not change your boot record, they create a file that is a virtual hard disk.
You can visualize your current PC also using a tool like http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/
more links
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=virtualize+my+pc

 

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I also prefer VMWare, but if you don't need that much power try Sandboxie
http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?DownloadSandboxie=
Very easy to use

 

It occurred to me, after reading all the replies and the information on the web sites of the suggested products (and I thank all for that), that a simple and very workable solution would be to create a small partition on my C: drive that could only be accessed with a password.

Is that possible?

 

I guess you mean 'and install XP in it' so yes, that could be done but may not be as simple as you imagine, as the immediate consequence would be that XP would be bootable but Win 7 would not. There are ways around that by then installing a boot manager but you would then be getting into unnecessary complications. Also, in order to use your alternate email system in XP you would have to reboot each time. With a VM you could go into XP from Win 7 absolutely seamlessly.

 

No, I want to avoid installing any addition O/S including XP.

What I had in mind was storing "shortcuts" in the partition that would load programs, like e-mail, browser, etc.

So, use password to gain access to the partition. Click on a shortcut and go from there.

Anyone trying to start a program, before opening the partition, would get an error message that in effect would say - "not a valid link"

Doable?

 

Sorry, I'm being distracted by a number of things at the moment. I think I got it bass-ackwards.

I would install the few programs in the password protected partition and put the shortcuts "outside" so if the partition was not accessible when a shortcut was clicked an error message would appear stating that the "path" was not available.

Once the partition was accessible by using the password, the "path" would be available and the program would load and execute.

I don't understand enough about partitions to know if this would work.

 

Very short answer - no.
In the virtual machines you could, kinda do something like that, no passwords, but you can use 'unity' mode and create short cuts to apps in the other OS.

Maybe you should you tube virtual machines and see how they work.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=beginning+virtual+machines

Before I'd say you might be able to, you have to use Truecrypt, create a virtual partition or drive, and install the software to it (if the software would let you choose a separate drive. That way you have to mount the 'partition/drive' with TrueCrypt via a password and access the files on the TrueCrypt 'drive'
TrueCrypt is no longer developed, there is another group trying to bring it back to life.
https://ciphershed.org/
I run TrueCrypt on Win 7 x64 currently, why can't you?

 

Dunno why this never occurred to me before - why not create a second user account protected with a password and, where possible, install your software for that user only? Some software offers that, some doesn't, but even with the software that doesn't the first user would still need your password to access your mail.

 

To answer foogoo comment - "I run TrueCrypt on Win 7 x64 currently, why can't you?"

I couldn't get a "current" version of TrueCrypt, since they quit, so I installed the version that I had on my old PC #1 (WinXP).

Win7 applied "Read Only" to all the encrypted files and wouldn't let me make changes. In general it was a mess, Win7 didn't seem to want to treat the old version of TrueCrypt as XP had. I was only a couple of days into my "migration" and use of Win7 so I just gave up and removed TrueCrypt from my new PC #3.

I think I'm going to try Earthling's suggestion and create a second user with pass word protection. That might be a simple and effective answer.

I've never used a "second user" on a PC before so it will probably take so time to determine how much Win7 isolates the two.

Something to work on as I continue to proceed with the migration.

Thanks to all for your time, help and suggestions.

I've been running two PCs with XP for a long time (over ten years) and at my age change is not a welcomed thing, so I'll just soldier on.

Without you folks at MajorGeeks, the wheels probably would have come off long ago and I'd still be in the ditch.

 

This may reassure you a little. My wife uses my previous PC after I created a new user account for her. I had long used Thunderbird on that computer but if she starts Thunderbird from her user account there is no sign of my email accounts and she is invited to create a new account. Equally, if I log in to my old user account and open MS Outlook, which she uses, there is no sign of her email account and it won't let me add it either.

That is not to say that an experienced user could not fairly easily circumvent these security features but they are certainly sufficient to frustrate the casual or average user.

 

My objective is to have a portion of the PC that no one can enter and has no idea what's in there. So if someone inherits my machine, after looking it over (application and files) would decide to either junk it or just install a new O/S and wipe everything out and start out with a "clean" machine.

Thanks for your help.

 

That can only be 'guaranteed' by using strong encryption.

 

We've come full circle.

 

Maybe change programs?
TrueCrypt has some flaws.
http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/
move over to Bitlocker?