Dual booting windows XP

[comdw]

I've recently setup my system to dual boot with a second Windows XP installation as a sandbox to try out new or untrusted software safely.

When I boot into my sandbox XP installation however, my regular XP OS is still visible to the system as the C drive.

Is there any simple way I can protect my normal XP drive (C) from changes by the second installation of XP? I fear many programs will probably blindly try to write to the C: drive even if its not the system drive (especially viruses and malware), and this will defeat the object of my "sandbox".

Can it be done?

 

[pcgeek11]

If you really want to do this use a better alternative... VMWare... It is perfect for what you want to do.

pcgeek11

 

[Navid]

I have two XPs on two primary partitions. However, before I boot to one, I hide the other using Drive Image 2002. So, both XPs think they are C! I hope that makes sense. Even when I boot to the second partition, it is C because it does not see the other partition before it.

It is not as simple as dealing with a dual-boot menu. But, I do not care since most of the time, I boot to one. Only occasionally, I use the other and I do not care about the 60 seconds it takes to fire on Drive Image and change the active partition and hide the other and reboot.

Edit:

There are many advantages.
1- The main is exactly what you mentioned; one XP cannot accidentally modify the other.
2- I image my XP partitions for restoring later instead of having to re-install everything when needed. I can install everything only once and image it and use the image for both partitions other than a minor change required to the boot.ini on the second partition, everything else is identical between the two partitions unless I want them to be different.
3- I install some of my programs on partition D. Both XPs see that partitions as partition D and can run the programs. This way, I do not need identical programs installed twice. If I set up the program once, it is done for both.
4- When you download a file, often the default place to download to is C:\......., which again causes writing to C (if you are not careful to change the path) when you are booting to your XP on D. In my case, that never happens.

 

[comdw]

VMware isn't free and doesn't allow me to try the types of software I want (games for one).

Navid, your suggestion sounds a little too complicated. As well as hiding partitions each time I'd also have to make the OS I wanted to boot the active partition.

Surely there must be some freeware utility that can block access to a path or drive?

If not I might just have filemon logging all accesses of the C drive...

 

[Navid]

I wonder if you can use permissions to accomplish what you want. You may need to use different user names and passwords for each XP and then close permissions for everyone else but yourself.

 

[comdw]

yes i thought about trying that but the only safe way would be to remove the permissions even for the SYSTEM entry, which obviously I can't do as it would affect my normal XP installation. I assuming that its easily possible for installation programs and malware to run as SYSTEM which would bypass user level permissions?

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: comdw
Navid, your suggestion sounds a little too complicated. As well as hiding partitions each time I'd also have to make the OS I wanted to boot the active partition.

When I use Drive Image to change the active partition, it automatically hides the other partition. So, it is just one action and it reboots after I apply. So, it is not that complicated. But, Drive Image was not free.
And as I said it is not as simple as a simple dual-boot menu. But, the advantages I listed made it the way to go for me.

Also, I only use one of the two most of the time. I only boot to the other one if I need to log into office from home. I only do that if it is snowing bad outside and I want to work from home. That happens once or twice a year! That is not a big deal for me. But, if you will be switching between the two 10 times a day, I understand that it may be too complicated.

 

[TG2]

If the sandbox is going to be playing games and such, and you think youll be redoing the OS a few times a year (or more) then Id probably setup the PC itself as the sandbox, then use VMWare for the other XP os and have all your personal stuff like email and such in that. You can also set the VM to be full screen, so its hard to tell the difference of running the actual OS or the VM if your PC is a decent rig.
(VMWare server is free and VMWare player is free, just use server to create and run the VM's...or create them in server and play them in player)