Am I protected form spyware while working on live CD?

[mjoln]

If I work on live CD/DVD, using openoffice, and saving on a USB stick, am I protected form the spyware/malware which I might have on my hard drive(I have win7 on it and it is connected to the internet). many thanks

[jayd512]

Hi, mjoln! Welcome to LinuxForums!

As long as your Win7 partitions are not mounted, and you're not accessing any of the files contained on it, yes. You are protected from it.
And while you're booted to a LiveCD, now would be a good time to run a scan on your Windows install

[mjoln]

many thanks

[mjoln]

So, what you mean is that while I am working on the live CD, not to access any of the files on win7, but what does it mean "mounted"? thanks

[jayd512]

Long answer: Mount

In order to access files, a partition or device must be mounted. Most operating systems do this automatically when, for example, you plug in a flash drive or insert a DVD.

[mjoln]

many thanks again jay, anyway this knoppix is very smartly done, it detects straight away the broadband hub(in Ubuntu you have to install it and I couldn't, I followed some instructions but it didn't work), while in windows I have all the time trouble getting on the net, to say nothing about viruses. Even now we got some virus on IE, even Google chrome has problems, although Mozilla still works fine. all the best.

[eionmac]

Dear sir, note it is important to know when you access your files on your hard drive as as soon as hard drive is active it "may' copy mal-ware/virus/spyware onto the USB drive . This then effects every Windows computer you plug it into.
Recommendation: TO keep computer free from mal-ware, start up with a LIVE CD Linux versions (this can not be written to) mount windows drives, (i,e you can see and read or to write files). Download a free antivirus scan from a reputable company e.g McAfee or Kaspersky or Symantec (an on-demand scan ) run on Windows C drive. If You want to you can use PUPPY LInux which will run in RAM if you have 300+MB RAM. I trust this helps.