Advice on handling suspicious and dangerous files ?

I have a windows 10 pro ThinkPad , hyper v running windows 10 ....

Let's say I am downloading suspicious files of the internet , like mp4s maybe . To be safe I am running them inside of a Virtual Machine (VM) first . I wondered how to get it inside of the VM from the host with maximum isolation .

What I was adviced was to create a iso of the suspicias file , mount it to the VM and then unmount it after copying it inside VM . They say it is safe .

But I had a query , when i download the suspicious files, they usually go into the downloads folder then I either copy paste or drag and drop it inside the temp iso creation folder . I asked chatgpt and it said that even handling these risky files like viewing them in file explorer , copy pasting it etc can pose a risk as the file explorer may preview the meta data like thumbnails , file size etc and that can be potentially exployted . Even windows defender scanning the file on its own or explorer preview pannel bug can apparently be dangerous .

My question is , is it bogus that even copy pasting can being dangerous and if so how do I most safely handle these files and safely transport it to my VM without infecting my host PC . Not only mp4s but any file type I download of the internet , it feels like even looking at a file the wrong way can potentially infection my computer .

I know I am being overly cocious , and I know I can directly download into the temp file if needed and I know I can make backups of windows . I just want to know if we had to

How to handle petenitally dangerous file , can a file infection my computer just by looking at it or copy pasting it ? And if so how to safely move such file .

Hope you understand my rambeling question and any advice is greatly appreciated, thankyou and sorry to make you read all this .