[citation][nom]jellico[/nom]A virus doesn't work that way. You're trying to equate it with what a biological organism might do. A computer virus is nothing more than a computer program designed to do something malicious and attempt to obfuscate its presense. In the case of a Windows virus, they will infect system files, create copies in various directories and modify the registry to make certain the virus is always loaded in the boot sequence. And then, of course, it will do whatever malicious stuff it was programmed to do (such as steal your browser history and encrypt your music and video files).A program like Sandboxie sets up a virtual environment in memory. The only thing that comes out is the video output. The virus will enter the virtual environment and attempt to do all of the stuff it was programmed to do. Of course, there are no system files to affect and no registry to modify, so it really can't do much of anything. And, like any other computer program that encounters a condition it doesn't have a response to, it does nothing at all. When the program is closed, the memory allocated for virtualization is released and available for use by the system again. As far as the computer is concerned, that memory is empty, even though data remnants remain. This is just like when you delete a file from your hard drive. And just as your computer doesn't attempt to run anything in an area of your hard drive that it believe is blank, it will not attempt to execute something in an area of memory that is marked as unallocated.I know that was kind of long, but I hope it addresses your concerns.[/citation]
It does, thank you. I guess I just am failing to understand because there are viruses that sort of take place in the temporary internet files folder and will not be considered "gone" even though you have removed it completely. I just assumed it did the same concept, but that is an interesting program I never thought of that approach. Is there no way for the virus to recognize that the allocated virtual space is indeed a virtual space and not the system?