iphone/w-phone USB passthrough in Windows VM

[jnsvano]

Hello, is it possible to connect iphone or windows phone through local [workstation] usb passthrough in Windows7/8 guests located on ESXi 5.1 ?
Seems to be no ?

[clarkwayne]

Hi,

     Most people on the forums here will tell you it's not officially supported, and it isn't, but I don't see a reason why you couldn't. I've passed through things from flash drives to USB TV tuners.

     Make sure you are upgraded to the latest revision of ESXi 5.1. I remember some of the earlier revisions broke USB pass through.

     Just plug in the phone to the usb cable, then the usb cable to the ESXi host. Now add a USB controller to the VM (through VM -> Edit Settings), and add a USB device (through VM -> Edit Settings).

[jnsvano]

Thanks, clarkwayne. So, does it mean that local passthrough (I mean when you connect a phone to local workstation and then use Remote Desktop or vSphere Client's console) will not work at all ? Because I have server in one place and workstations in another...

[clarkwayne]

When you pass through as USB device to a VM, you are giving that VM full access to it, it cannot be shared with another VM on the host.

Also, when you pass it through you are making it look like the device is physically connected to the VM. So in theory, if you configure the remote desktop settings correctly, you should still see the device there. If you use the vSphere console it should always still show up.