Study.com and ProctorU Questions

[Merlin]

I understand that Study.com and many similar sites use ProctorU to provide virtual proctoring. What's the "pain in the butt" factor when dealing with ProctorU? I have looked online a bit, but I keep getting conflicting information.

My questions are:

• I don't happen to own a Windows box, can I run a Windows virtual machine and get protracted or is that problematic? 
  
• How "sterile" do you have to keep the testing environment you're working from? I anticipate testing from my home office which is full of tech and shelved books. Is that likely to be a problem?
  
• I hear they want to get a look around the room (with a mirror?) through your webcam. What's the purpose of that? 
  
• If I get up from my desk to step out to the restroom and return in short order is that somehow against the rules?
  

• No, you cannot take the tests in a virtual machine. That is explicitly disallowed, and they even do checks to look for it as part of the proctor session. It is too easy to cheat that way. They do have a Mac OSX client as well. Not sure about Linux.
  
• You need to have the area within arms reach of where you'll be testing completely clear. This includes the walls and area under, around, and behind your monitor/desk. If you have a lot of stuff visible from the webcam, you might want to cover it before the exam. This also applies to other computers and monitors if they're not powered off.
  
• They want you to show the entire room using your webcam to make sure there isn't anything on the walls that can help you cheat, or anyone in the room who can relay answers. They want you to use your phone or a mirror to show the area around and behind your monitor to make sure you don't have post-it notes or places where you can hide notes.
  
• Some longer tests will allow a 5-minute bathroom break, shorter tests will not. But you have to get confirmation from the proctor before you leave, and once you leave the room you cannot go back to any section of the test that you've already seen to ensure you don't look up the answers while away.