Gerhard Fiedler wrote:

> I'm not quite sure about the NTFS access restrictions cross-system. OTOH,
> the first part may be enough (that the viruses won't access files on
> partitions that are not present as drive letters). Has somebody ever
> actually had a system cross-contamination in such a setup? I haven't, but I
> haven't had any contamination to speak of at all, so I really can't tell.

Well, I'm happy to discuss this 'cause I still have some doubts after 10 
years of working on NT OSes...

I used to think that *every* file on a NTFS drive could only be read 
i.e. accessed *only* if you were a recognized user: I found out that 
this was not the case, i.e. installing that hard disk on another NT 
machine will give you access to those files.
OK.
Then, I hoped that files could be "encrypted", and this should be 
possible (though time-consuming), but anyway this is not going to 
protect from overwrites & such.

So, at the very end, in theory (and Vista seems to be going this 
direction) you (we) should only work as Normal User, and giving thus 
Full Access to User's folders (Documents, Desktop, My Images etc); 
Windows and Program Files Folder would then be inaccessible.
Of course, this is going to give headaches if you use your machine for 
"real Work" i.e. reinstall, updates ...

-- 
Ciao, Dario
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