Vista - Does Software Restriction Policy on Host Affect a Guest OS?

I came across a most interesting issue today, and I cannot find mention of it
by searching.

I applied a simple Software Restriction Policy to prohibit software
execution from locations other than the Program Files and Windows directories
for non-administrative users. This is on Vista SP1, fully patched.

On this Vista host OS I have VPC 2007 SP1 running a WinXP Pro SP3 VM. The
Virtual Machine Additions have been applied. Configuration of the VM is
extremely simple. It is the bare OS with Symantec Anti Virus Corporate
Edition, and it is used exclusively for connecting to a Check Point Connectra
SSL VPN.

After applying the Software Restriction Policy I found that the Tab key and
all Windows key combinations in the VM failed to function. No amount of
fiddling with settings in VPC or the VM would change the behavior. I could
even open Notepad in the VM and try to use the Tab key, to no avail. Remove
the Software Restriction Policy, and all is well.

I have confirmed this now on two Vista SP1 systems. (Vista SP1 host,
WinXP_SP3 client)

Has anyone seen or heard of this issue before? If so, is there a fix?

I thought I'd post this -- just in case it might benefit someone else.

I found a solution to this issue by looking for executables / libraries
outside the approved software locations. I found that Virtual PC 2007 SP1 (I
haven't tested other versions for this issue.) keeps a library named
VPCKeyboard.dll in the user profile. I'm not certain why. This library
provides the keyboard hooks for virtual machines. It's placement in this
locations makes the Software Restriction Policy apply to it. I got rid of the
problem by adding a path rule to the restriction policy and designating this
file to be Unrestricted. This would have to be done for each user on the
system who was going to use VPC.

"LeftFoot" wrote: