A tiny guide for those who want to destroy a computer without wasting money to repair it. be warned i'm not the tidiest guide maker.

Shoutout to BEPISMAN for reminding silly old me that some viruses (network ones for example) can harm your real PC, i'd research the virus you desire to test before running it.

And everyone else who's given some good criticism. (i mean all of you.)


Step one. install a Virtual Machine

you'll need software to do anything like this, thankfully we have VirtualBox!

Go to downloads and get the latest build for your platform and let it install... easy enough right?

NOTE: YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION WILL BE TURNED OFF FOR A FEW MOMENTS DURING THE INSTALLATION! SAVE YOUR WEB BASED WORK.

Now allow the drivers to be installed and you'll have your VM installed... but there's some more work to be done...

Step two. Setting up your first "profile"
Now that you've opened the program you are greeted by a blank menu...

We need to make our first machine! Press new to begin...i should say that you'll need an ISO file to use your OS...i don't encourage piracy but i have a old copy of XP for this sake.
Now in the window that's popped up name your machine and select what OS you shall use.

Press next and fill what is seen next (the amount of ram you will lend to the VM)
This is what decides how fast your VM will be... i recommend you use half your total ram so you can still use programs outside of the VM


Now the last window... Setting up your virtual hard drive.

Leave it as shown and press create. you'll see a window then asking what format you want to use... i advise you use VDI if you do not intend to switch VM programs.
now the next window asks if you want fixed size or a dynamically allocated one, for the sake of the VM's speed use fixed it takes longer to make but overall causes less lag.

Select a size within your real storage drive's space... 20 gigs is perfect for this!

Now wait until it's done making the drive. why not go make some coffee or something if you set it large enough?

Oh boy! we are almost done!

Final step. installation. this only applies to XP!!!
Press SATA port 1 and select choose a disk image, from there navigate to where you placed your iso file...

Now double click your VM in the list to start it!

After some loading messages it will ask you to select a drive for windows to be installed on, it will see your Virtual one so press enter on it.

Select format using the NTFS file system

Now why not get some food or something while you wait...? this will take quite a bit!

From here it should be quite noob friendly so i'll end it here.

thanks for having the time to read this clutter filled mess... it means a lot! <3

 

[linuxares]

I suggest NO ONE uses this guide for this. This guide haven't taken account for the network being on, so you could infect yourself and your network with a worm. Not only that but no one should really relate to Virtualbox when it comes to this kind of things. VMPlayer is much more secure if you wanna play around. Mind you, use another OS if you REALLY wanna do this. Linux is a lot harder to infect than a Windows machine.

And another thing, don't use Windows XP to "research a virus". It's too old to look at the new baddies.

 

[DBlaze]

Points on why not to do this even to tests viruses are already pointed out.

If you really want to test it completely and "safely", you'd have to find a way to isolate (as in, its complete own network environment with nothing else connected to it) an actual (old) computer you have available to abuse and are willing to possibly toss out the window.
And even then you'd have to be very careful.

@linuxares he was merely pointing out instructions you have to do in case you want to install xp, he's saying to use xp
edit: oh nvm, it's actual installation of xp.
No idea why anyone would do that

 

[linuxares]

@linuxares he was merely pointing out instructions you have to do in case you want to install xp, he's saying to use xp

Ay, I know. I read it.

 

[Uiaad]

Point is these days there are plenty of youtubers testing viruses these days so you don't have to. And to be honest, when it comes virus payloads these days no one has any style any more it's all send me bitcoin crap ( other than the ones that make you play pubg or achieve a certain score in a certain game to get your files back these have been popular over the last couple of months ) There used to be some flair in older viruses but that is mostly gone these days baring the odd one.

 

[Localhorst86]

I... don't really see the practical use for this tutorial. Is this only to grab +10 XP?
There is no need for a regular user to ever purposely run a virus. This is something only professional security researchers should ever do.

Security researchers taking a - sorry for the term - half assed tutorial from a gaming site? 5/7, would trust that researcher again.