Antivirus for Windows 8 CP in VirtualBox?

Do I need antivirus for Windows 8 CP in VirtualBox? If so, which free one would work? Will Microsoft Security Essentials work? I have antivirus (Norton) and firewall (Comodo) on my Windows 7 host.

Windows 8 has MSE built in as Windows Defender. That should be enough.

Thanks. I'll stick with that.

kado897 said:

Windows 8 has MSE built in as Windows Defender. That should be enough.

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Kado, I wish I'd known that before I installed Avast. But I don't seem to be having any trouble.

If Avast is working for you that's fine Vince.

Somewhere in the user manual of VirtualBox it's said: they don't recommend the use of antivirus software in a vm since it can considerably decrease the performance.

If your host is protected then it's ok. The vm is isolated from your host (ok not with the shared folder feature... which I always compare with stargate... It's the only way a malware appicatiion/virus can go from the vm to the host).

But if antivirus is needed in the vm for your tasks, then install what works good for you.


Hopachi

Hopachi, you're making a valid point. But I went through so much grief getting the 8 Preview installed on my virtual machine that I don't want to take any chances. But even with Avast running in the background, I don't see any slowing down.

Vince53 said:

Hopachi, you're making a valid point. But I went through so much grief getting the 8 Preview installed on my virtual machine that I don't want to take any chances. But even with Avast running in the background, I don't see any slowing down.

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It's good that it now works Vince.

It can slow down when there are (extra) background tasks like scanning for malware (this slows thing down a bit even on your real os).

The virtual hard disk seems to be faster then the real hard disk even if it runs on top of it, and we don't feel that the system is slower. If you have more demanding apps running at the same time as a scan, then we can say that it will slow down.

But good to know that Avast does a good job so we don't need to argue about this.

Thanks
Hopachi