Printing from remote using Workstation 8 Shared VMs

[Joseph_Barron]

I have a server setup with VMWare Workstation 8 and it shares a Virtual Machine that is used remotely by a user running VMWare Workstation 8 as well. All seems to be working fine, but they do Quickbooks accounting and printing to and emailing PDFs is far to cumbersome a way to accomplish printing to printers connected to their local machine.

With our old solution, RDP, they could print to their local printers. They want the same capability with the Remote VMWare solution that I have in place.

BTW, there is NO VPN connection to the VMWare Workstation 8. They simple come across the Internet in the clear and connect to the VMWare Workstatn 8 Server.

Is there anyway to print directly, like RDP?

Thanks.

[Rahulverma20111]

After sharing a virtual machine, the virtual machine becomes a shared resource on the network. Features which are available on a non-shared virtual machine, which utilize local resources (on the pyhysical machine which is hosting the VM) stop working on a shared VM. This is by design and normal behavior.

These features do not work on a shared VM:

Unity

Shared Folders

AutoProtect

drag and drop

copy and paste

Ability to connect/redirect USB devices from the host to the virtual machine.

Thin Print

If you want to use the print function, you can add/configure the printer directly on the virtual machine.

[Joseph_Barron]

I'm a bit confused, in one place you indicate thst it is  ot available, bit the  give hope that ther is a work around with your last recommendation.

So here is a senario, If the printer is connected to a USB port on UserA home computer, A Windows 7 machine conncected to the Internet. And they are running VMWorstation 8 and connect across the internet to ServerB (also running VMWare Workstation 8 in shared server mode turned on), which is sharing a Windows 7 VM. So the user firs up that machine and begins using it, how do we configure the Windows 7 VM print function to use the USB printer on UserA computer?

Is this feature available in Workstation 9?

Thanks

[Rahulverma20111]

Since 8.0.5 or 9.0.1, you can connect a USB device from the client machine to a shared VM running on another server which is hosting the VM.

In your scenario, you can connect the USB printer/device to the shared VM through VM > Removable Devices > "Device Name" > Connect. This will connect the printer/device on the User-A machine to the VM running on ServerB.

You can then install the printer/device drivers and use it in the virtual machine.

The above does not work for thinprint drivers. The VM will pick up print drivers configured on ServerB and not from the user machine.

[William22]

Hi Joseph.Barron

Welcome to the communities.

You did not explain about printer model ,Assuming if your printer manufacture providing any utility called internet printing then install that application .

After that do simply port forwarding option on router or firewall.

"With normal actions you get normal results."