Odd IT question

[garbsmj]

Please redirect as necessary.

I'm still working remotely and the connection to my developer machine went down. So of course, I'm in the middle of this big project and so I try to email my boss. No answer so I use IM (which is our new nifty emergency system) to try to get in touch with someone. Anyway I finally do and the IT person asks "so is this a virtual machine or an actual tower?"

Now first off, I've never been in the office so how would I know. Secondly, would I be applying MS patches on a virtual machine? So I smartly retorted but now I'm thinking, would I? Then I'd be logging onto a virtual machine, doing virtual routine maintenance and backup and rebooting after patches were applied as necessary?

[StuartR]

Yes, you do need to apply patches to virtual machines, and install applications, and run backups, and use anti-virus software, and...

[garbsmj]

Okay - they fixed it but they never tell me what exactly I'm on. Of course they can't see me, so it's difficult to tell, eh? I just thought a virtual machine was like, you know some recreation out there that's mirroring an actual machine without needing the maintenance.

Thanks Stuart!

Peggy