[josephg]

Faster, yes. But not all of the things modern software does is pointless overhead. For anything networked, modern crypto is a must have if you’re going to interoperate with other devices. And I wouldn’t trust a windows 95 virtual machine connected directly to my corporate network.

[squarefoot]

I didn't try, but firewalling the VM shouldn't be hard since it talks through a virtual dedicated interface. Also, one can isolate it from the network and use only shared directories with the host so it can read and write files without going online.