Printer not work with both VMWare apps and Mac apps at same time

[jaffakatie]

Hello, I have an iMac with VMWare Fusion 2.0.2 running Windows XP and a Samsung SCX-4521F printer.

I can't use printer with Windows and Mac applications concurrently.

Need to do mysterious turning on/off, switching USB cable to different ports when I want to print first, say a Word doc, then print a pdf from Mac View or mail from Mac mail.

BIggest trouble is I can not figure a set routine to switch. Sometimes no matter what I do it won't switch. I end up turning everything off and starting from scratch and it is driving me crazy when I need to print something in a hurry.

Can't find any settings to solve this. I also saw some few year old posts on this site that sound similar, but so vague I'm not at all sure its the same issue and surely there is a more recent solution.

Applecare people took me through download of printer drivers from web. Didn't help. They gave up and said it's a VMWare thing. "Hot something"? Switching? - sorry can't recall.

I really hope someone will provide an answer to this that does not assume I'm a programmer and is quite clear about what settings I should change to solve this.

thanks

[Mikero]

Sounds like you're using USB passthru and printer sharing both at the same time.

Just use Printer Sharing to avoid having to disconnect the USB all the time.

Power Off the Virtual Machine. (Start > Shutdown)

Navigate to the Menu Bar > Virtual Machines > Settings > Printers > make sure it's 'enabled'

Click 'Show All' to return to the Virtual Machine Settings

Click 'USB'

You might want to uncheck the 'automatically connect USB Devices', but at the very least uncheck the printer from the checkboxes under 'Connect USB devices'.

Let us know if that helps 😃

[jaffakatie]

Thanks Mikero,

I followed those steps - the first was alreadyenabled.

At the other place while the USB appeared to be enabled, when I went in to the list there were 4 or 5 things (one included the printer) and all of these were unticked.

Soto be sure I stopped the USB automatically conecting and so the went back and tried it out.

Can't print from MS Word and can't print this web page (USing firefox) and can't print from mac mail. Both printer mac and windows printer queues say that the printer is offline.

The printer then printed 2separat and slightly different error pages after about4 or 5 minutes

I unplugged USB and replugged. Also no change.

Turned printer off, then after 10 seconds, back on again .

AFter another few minutes the Mac mail and the the web page printed. BUt the word document did not. The Mac printer queue says that the printer is now paused and one of the document that printed is still in the queue. The windows printer queue still says the printer is off line.

So now I unplugged and replugged USB. No change

Undid and moved to next port. No change

Unplugged and moved to third port along - it then immediately A(or coincidentally) printed another error report

Then movd to 4th port - no change

Then turned off printer, unplugged cord and moved it back to port 1 still no good

I have a remote mouse using a little gadget plugged int USB and it keeps working no matter which of the 4 USB ports I use so they must be ok.

It printed the Mac stuff, so the cable and printer must be ok.

I just looked back in the VMware settings and in the USB part the printer is no longer on the list.

So I turned off windows nd VW Ware,

Then tried to print this web page. Mac printer window said "printer has been paused... Continue.. which I did and the printer is just saying offline.

So I deleted the document fron the queue , powered off windows and WM ware and then reopened and tried to print - nothing.

And I can not get the Printer to appear back on the USB list now at all.

AFter I send this I'll turne everything off and start again.

Anything else I can do?

[jaffakatie]

I believe I have now solved this problem myself.

In VMWare settings I have Printers Enabled and in the USB part I have: Connect USB devices and I have the printer ticked for connection.

Then I saw a little symbol under my Windows screen, that I have ignored before - as I didn't know what they did. Along bottom edge of windows is a grey stripe with the following: To direct input to this virtual machine, click inside the window / To return to your computer press Control apple key (these two toggle depending if you are in Mac or Windows). But further along to right in same strip thr are a number of symbols. Some say Connect/disconnect from the virtual machine and some say configure for the virtual machine. One of them is a printer symbol.

So when I want to print in windows I need to click this and ensure it it connected to the virtaul machine and when I want to print in a mac app then I click and disconnect printer from Virtual machine.

I have searched net for such an answer and asked Applecare and surprised I could not find this quite simple answer.

thank you.