cant install printer in XP VM

[dizzysnake]

i wasnt able to find any information on this in search, which seems odd to me that no one else has tried to do this.

i found this on the vmware site:

>VMware has created a video tutorial that covers various methods for configuring a printer in the Virtual Machine. Click below to view the tutorial:

>VMware Fusion printing tutorial

but unfortunately clicking on the link did nothing.

when i try to add hardware to the VM, the windows (XP) VM runs the new hardware wizard, and tries to install the drivers for the printer ( a dell 1815 connected via USB). so it seems to know a dell 1815 is connected to the mac host computer.

however, there is no way to install the vmware driver in the install script. i eventually tried to install the dell driver figuring i could maybe convert it later in place to the VM drivers, but that caused the VM to blue screen and i had to delete the image!

my best guess now is that there is some way to specify the special vmware drivers while installing the printer, but i dont know how. i found something on the web where you installed hardware from the VM 'windows' menu, but that seems to be an earlier version of vmware; my version doesnt have a way to install hardware from the fusion menu.

i was able to get the VM to recognize a flash drive connected to the mac, so i know some part of the USB passthrough is working.

my question is: how do i install a printer in a vmware fusion virtual machine (windows XP) such that i can print from an application in the VM (such as MS Excel) and have the printing be done by the dell 1815 connected to the USB port on my host machine (mac mini)

thanks, james

[WoodyZ]

First of all there are no VMware Printer Drivers and if you see anything VMware in Printer & faxes just delete it as it's not supose to be there and is there in error because somone messed up and it's not you!

You can install a USB Printer in a Windows Virtual Machine the exact say way you would if it was a physical machine!

Only one OS can control the device at a time so either install it in Windows and use it in Windows when needed and in OS X when needed or install it in OS X as a shared resource and then install it in Windows as a shared OSX Printer.

[dizzysnake]

hmm, thats what i tried and i got a blue screen and i was not able to get that VM image working again- i had to delete it.

what i figured out was that i installed a native driver and of course it totally went nuts trying to write to hardware that didnt exist. its been a really long time since ive written a device driver so i am not at all clear how these modern ones work.

ill make another copy of my VM and try it again. thanks,

[dizzysnake]

this time i got a blue screen with the BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER info on it when i boot the VM.

is this because the printer is also recognized by mac osc? do i have to uninstall the dell printer from mac osx before i try using it from windows?

according to msdn, it looks like parameter 1 is:

>0x5

>Device extension pointer of the host controller

>PCI vendor, product id for the controller

>Pointer to endpoint data structure

>A hardware failure has occurred due to a bad physical address found in a hardware data structure. This is not due to a driver bug.

which makes me think the driver in windows thinks it still on a dell box and is pointing to hardware that doesnt exist (because its a VM).

its very time consuming to create a new VM copy every time i try something new. any clues for getting me on the right track are appreciated. thanks,

[dp_fusion]

This solution requires you to use bridged networking. Get the Bonjour for Windows software from Apple.com downloads. Share your Mac attached printer in OS X, use Bonjour for Windows to attach it to Windows. Now both systems can use the printer at the same time - the Mac will act as a spooler for print jobs and serialize them. Caveat: using bridged networking for your vm requires your dhcp to provide the vm with ip, dns, domain, router info. With NAT this is provided by OS X but with bridged your vm is a network peer of OS X and has all the same requirements. Alternately you can manually provision the network information in the system tool.

This is one small area where Parallels outshines Fusion. In Parallels Bonjour works with NAT and Bridged networks. At least is used to - haven't used PD in a long time.

If you choose to not use Bonjour then you have to use the Fusion USB menu to attach the printer to the Windows VM. This will detach it from OS X - can't have it both ways. Once it is detached from OS X, Windows should discover the printer and attempt to install a driver for it. You have to use the USB menu to release the printer back to OS X when you're done.

I finally bought a wireless printer to avoid all this but a network or bluetooth attached printer provides the same gain - unlike direct attached USB, networks understand simultaneous system access and don't impose an either or limitation to multiple systems.

[gwsat]

I agree that a network printer is the only way to go to install a printer on XP running in either a VMware Fusion or Boot Camp partition. I installed my network printer on both. All you need is the Windows driver for your printer and its IP address. I installed it on both the Boot Camp and Fusion versions of XP running on my MacBook Pro. Here is a link with terrific step-by-step instructions for doing it from within windows.

http://uis.georgetown.edu/software/documentation/winxp/winxp.network.printer.html

I should add that I have installed the OS X drivers for my Oki C5300 color laser printer on the OS X side and the Windows drivers in the Fusion and Boot Camp partitions. The printer doesn't seem to care that it's running Windows drivers in Fusion (I don't use the Boot Camp partition any more -- it's a long story), and the OS X drivers in OS X.

I think that it's also possible to add a USB printer to a wireless network by making a USB connection between the printer and the wireless router, and using the router's IP address as the printer's address. Unfortunately, I can't find a link to those instructions.