Simulate USB as Serial

[repllccax]

Hi, I got a difficult question for you!! (or maybe not)

Is it possible to let the Guest think an plugged in USB device is a serial one?

Example: An USB printer appears as an serial printer inside the WindowsXP-VM...

Hope, you understood my isue, thanks and bye bye!

[repllccax]

No ideas?

[admin]

There's no general way to do this. The only thing that USB and RS232 serial have in common is that they both only have a 1bit wide data channel. There are things you can do like have the guest's serial port stream to a file on the host or to a named pipe that you could, potentially, stream to a physical printer with some additional software.

You might get some hints if you let the forum know what you're trying to accomplish (at a high level, not how you plan on implementing it) there are often easier ways of doing things.

[repllccax]

Hi,

the idea was to separate the data streams of USB equipment and USB storage devices.

A customer of us wants to have all USB ports deactivated in the VM, but is using a USB printer. Of course it is possible to let the guest (windows) not to accept storage devices, but I thougth it would be a better way to realize this within the Workstation.

Maybe you got a better suggestion for me.

Thanks.

[RDPetruska]

Why not simply share the printer on the host, and connect to the printer in the guest via the network?