Mac users can spread the "NewLove" worm via e-mail, however, and it can infect Macs running Windows emulation products.

While Windows users grapple with the "NewLove" worm, Macs remain safe from its predations --except when running Windows emulation software. Mac users can act as vectors for spreading the malicious code, however, according to David Loomstein, group product manager for anti-virus vendor Symantec Corp. isual Basic software, which runs only on Windows PCs, it cannot infect Mac OS systems. "All indications are, as was the case with the original (ILOVEYOU worm), it will not affect Macintosh users," Loomstein said. "The payload is transmitted by a '.vbs' executable and thus cannot be run on a Macintosh computer." Because Mac users could spread the virus by forwarding infected e-mails to Windows users, Loomstein recommends that users delete any unexpected e-mails that include "FW:" in the subject line or the .vbs extension in the attachment. The virus can infect the Windows partition on Mac systems running Windows emulation products, so users of Virtual PC from Connectix Corp. , SoftWindows from FWB Software and Orange Micro Inc.'s Windows compatibility cards should take precautions. However, even on these systems the virus will not infect the Mac partition.