Hunting malware - Win7, 8.1 or Win10?

What OS should I use.


  • Total voters
    28

NekoJonez

Level 5
Thread author
Verified
Well-known
Jun 3, 2015
200
In the unending battle against malware, you can do a lot of things. I'm trying to actively find malware (mostly adware) and trying to disinfect computers.

For that, I use various VM's. But because making snapshots and such can take up a ton of disk space and malware creators continually evolve... I'm doubting what windows OS is best to search & test malware on. What OS would you use and why?

Should I upgrade my VM to Windows10 or not? Should I upgrade it to Win8.1? Or should I leave it at Win7?

Thanks in advance guys.
 

nsm0220

Level 21
Verified
Sep 9, 2013
1,054
In the unending battle against malware, you can do a lot of things. I'm trying to actively find malware (mostly adware) and trying to disinfect computers.

For that, I use various VM's. But because making snapshots and such can take up a ton of disk space and malware creators continually evolve... I'm doubting what windows OS is best to search & test malware on. What OS would you use and why?

Should I upgrade my VM to Windows10 or not? Should I upgrade it to Win8.1? Or should I leave it at Win7?

Thanks in advance guys.
Stay at 7, because its more stable then windows 10.
 

done

Level 5
Verified
Mar 19, 2015
217
XP yes
Vista yes
win 7 yes
8 no
10 no
thx
you can shrink win 7 cd to half of the size it'll save you 50% of space, remove all unneeded things
 
Last edited:
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cruelsister

Level 42
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Honorary Member
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Content Creator
Well-known
Apr 13, 2013
3,132
If you want to limit yourself to one OS, no question that you should use the most popular. As of last week:

Market Share- Windows 7- ~53%
Windows 8 and 8.1- ~17%
Windows XP- ~9%
Windows 10- ~6%
Windows Vista- ~2%

And as Win 7 and 8 are the same (as far as malware is concerned) except for the Interface, so overall a Windows 7 VM covers a bit over 70% of all installations.

(Umbra's correct as usual)
 
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done

Level 5
Verified
Mar 19, 2015
217
If you want to limit yourself to one OS, no question that you should use the most popular. As of last week:

Market Share- Windows 7- ~53%
Windows 8 and 8.1- ~17%
Windows XP- ~9%
Windows 10- ~6%
Windows Vista- ~2%

And as Win 7 and 8 are the same (as far as malware is concerned) except for the Interface, so overall a Windows 7 VM covers a bit over 70% of all installations.

(Umbra's correct as usual)
There should more XP's. I do believe that it's more around 20% or even more at least in Canada:)
 

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