Right, I'm slowly getting my thick head around this.
It looks to me as though I can use virtual box but disable the virtual network card. Could I use a free anti virus programme only on the XP side to be more certain of protection ?
The vm only exchanges data the outside world and OSX via the network card. If that's disabled nothing gets in or out unless mount a CD/DVD or USB drive
Is it worth upgrading to mavericks ? (now that I know what it is) thanks LIAB.
Some have specific issues with it, I've encountered a wifi disconnect issue every now and again but TM is rock solid (though I use a directly connected external drive not a time capsule). I'd say don't upgrade if you don't have a reason. It's free, you can do it any time.
Can I connect XP to the internet if I disable that virtual network card ?
No.
You seem quite focused on malware and viruses. Your described uses are minor. I'd install XP and some free AV. Once XP is installed, fully update it. If you are further concerned use Malwarebytes Antimalware once a week, once a month and if you no longer need connectivity after you've updated xp and installed your apps just disable the network card. You can always re-enable it.
I've just been looking through the VM Manual and now I'm confused again. At first look, it seems that I simply download it, install it and go from there, but when I read on it looks as though it's not that simple.
Can someone walk me through this install and use procedure.
Apologies if this covers some/all of what you know.
A Virtual Machine (in this instance) is a piece of software that imitates real hardware.
Virtual Box presents the illusion of PC hardware (processor, memory, disk space, graphics card, network card etc) to any software that's installed on it.
So you download, install and run VirtualBox.
The first thing you need to do is put your XP disc into your Mac.
Choose to create a new Virtual Machine and follow the install wizard through. It will ask how much memory to allocate to the hosted operating system (XP in this case), how much disk space etc. It takes you through the process and it's quite straightforward tbh.
Once the VirtualBox wizard finishes the VM will restart and will begin the XP install process, which you'll have seen before.
Once done you'll be prompted to load some application extensions in VirtualBox for XP. These just help manage the VM. By letting your mouse pointer behave correctly when jumping in and out of the window etc. Install these (it's a one time thing). Now you have XP running inside VirtualBox as a VM. Just like any other application. You can run it in a window or full screen.
You close XP when you're done as you normally would on a real machine (Start - Shutdown etc). When you want to 'boot' XP next time just start the VM from within the VirtualBox app.