Set up a computer that can easily get viruses/unwanted removed

[killersquirel11]

Hey

Right now I'm in charge of setting up a laptop for a guy who frequently takes ~6-month-long trips into China. When he's there, the only way the ISPs will allow him to access the internet is if he installs their programs on his computer. Some of those programs are probably not 100% clean, and others do annoyance factors like replacing the homepage or default search engine. Does anyone here have any recommendations of free/inexpensive (preferably under $50) programs, or more secure ways to configure Windows?

Thanks

 

[13thmonkey]

could you set it to run a virtual machine that does the logging in? data held on real machine?

 

[Supermuncher85]

Server was down? Couldn't post my message, but yeah VM seems the obvious choice. Always reload from a safe state, install the crapware when you need it. Needs a somewhat beefy computer though to not feel sluggish. I.e. not a netbook.

 

[killersquirel11]

I just found sandboxie. Anyone have any experience with that.

A virtual machine seems like it'd be a pretty bad performance hit. Granted the laptop does have an i7 processor which I'd assume has hardware support for virtualization.

 

[Supermuncher85]

Sandboxing is a form of virtualisation. Essentially it does the same thing.

 

[13thmonkey]

I've run VM machines on my dell M1330 with a T8100 and 4GB of ram, seemed to work ok, all it has to do is act as a gateway in effect.

 

[killersquirel11]

Best answer selected by killersquirel11.

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr.