Reverse engineering with a VM?

[cartman]

I'm a beginner at reverse engineering and I’m trying to make the leap to expert.

 

Which VM can you recommend to run and wich Windows OS

 

I'm hopefully looking for references and good pointers.

[zadow]

Eli the Computer Guy, have a nice video discussion about the topic. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiWRmMzwwJM

 

Dr.. Fu have a nice explanation also

http://fumalwareanalysis.blogspot.no/2011/08/malware-analysis-tutorial-reverse.html

 

I like Vm ware most myself, only personal pref.

Edited May 22, 2015 by zadow

[Conquest]

for windows,vmware if you can float like a pirate or pay like a boss. vbox is too buggy and oracle has made it into sh*t.for apple , parallels desktop. For linux , vbox unfortunately. its not unusable but certain features are buggy. 
In fact when it comes to hiding ability , vbox is best cus its open sourced.still the bugs kill the purpose.

[ToMKoL]

There is vmware player which is free for non-commercial use. For me it's the best solution.

[cartman]

Hi

 

How much memory (RAM) space (HDD) and cpu  should I allocate to the Virtual Machine and witch win os can u recommend

 

thanks

[Conquest]

Hi

 

How much memory (RAM) space (HDD) and cpu  should I allocate to the Virtual Machine and witch win os can u recommend

 

thanks

Depends on your usage. If you are going to debug small apps, only allocate as much ram as recommended for the os . If you are debugging memory hungry apps, allocate some realistic amount of ram (if your application consumes 1gb ram and 2gb for os , 3+gb is realistic amount . anything less will create issues). If you are unsure about the amount, start with large amount of ram and load the application, check memory consumption and resize ram accordingly . 

Always keep the hardware-assisted virtualization enabled to reduce stress on cpu.