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first, pardon my english as it is not my native language
Here is my question :

I run a PC with a dual boot with Windows7 (running mainly Adobe After Effects, Cinema4D and a bit of Adobe Premiere, for professionnal purposes) and Xubuntu (for more personnal purposes : scrivener and writing tools, mail, evernote, and mainly to access internet)
I switched to linux 6 years ago because I was tired of all the softwares that were needed for "protection" in W7 (firewall, antivirus, antimalware and so on) and I love the fact that linux is fast and light.

But I still need a Windows machine to run Adobe After Effects. As I want my Windows7 to stay light, safe and stable (if possible), I'd love to keep it away from the internet and get rid of every heavy softwares on it (in an ideal way, id love to run a "minimal" W7 with only the adobe suite and C4D on it).

The problem is that, obviously, many times, I need to access the internet while working on W7, but of course, rebooting and switching between the 2 OSs is not a good solution. So I thought about a virtual machine and asked myself :
is it possible to run a "minimal" W7 installation with no connection to the internet, and to run Xubuntu in a virtual machine, connected to the internet, with all the softwares I need, and of course with the ability to securely share files betweens the 2 OSs ?

According to Elder Geek's answer, I have considered the option of having Ubuntu as a host but i'm afraid it will slow down w7 too much. I especially need all the graphic card capabilities. So I wonder :can I set a firewall in w7 that blocks everything except the VM ? Will it works then ?

If not, according to you, what would be my ideal workflow ?
Thanks a lot guys, for taking time to read ! Hope my question makes sense.
Emmanuel.

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    Welcome to askubuntu! The answer is no as the host machine needs to be connected to the internet for the virtual machine to have access. What you could do however is run a Win 7 minimal install as a virtual machine with Ubuntu as host and prevent the VM from using the network that you have open for use on the Ubuntu host. Workflow is a matter of opinion so I'll leave that alone but I hope this comment helps you.
    – Elder Geek
    Dec 28, 2014 at 23:33
  • @elder-geek: That's not a comment! That's an answer! :p If you don't get your old, smoky bum off of your couch, I'll get my old, smoky, fat bum off mine and post it as an answer! :D ;-)
    – Fabby
    Dec 29, 2014 at 20:21
  • I'll agree with ElderGeek here - I do exact this with a couple of my VM's - the network interface in the VM is disabled, and it has no connection to the outside world, thus allowing me a 'quick' windows experience for the few programs I do need to run there.
    – Charles Green
    Dec 29, 2014 at 21:17
  • Thanks Charles Green, I have edited my message after Elder Geek's answer about this point
    – EmmanuelG
    Dec 30, 2014 at 20:58
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    @Fabby consider it done.
    – Elder Geek
    Dec 30, 2014 at 22:15

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The answer is yes you can run a minimal Win 7 installation with Ubuntu as the host. (the host machine needs to be connected to the internet for the virtual machine to have access. )

What I would recommend is to run a Win 7 minimal install as a virtual machine with Ubuntu as host and prevent the VM from using the network that you have open for use on the Ubuntu host. Workflow is a matter of opinion so I'll leave that alone. I've effectively used this approach hosting windows 7 and also windows xp under virtual box to run those applications that only run under windows that I can't do without.

As you can adjust the number of cores and the Graphics memory from the VM settings I think you can get reasonable performance from this approach although some tweaking may be necessary for optimum performance.

You can disable the VM connectivity to the network from the VM settings as shown below,

VMNETconf as well as share storage as necessary between the host and the VM.

Source: Experience..

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