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Falcon55
Contributor
Contributor

Prevent USB device from autoconnect

Hello,

how can I prevent an special usb device from autoconnecting to a virtual machine?

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bonnie201110141
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

There are two ways a USB device is connected to a VM automatically.

1) If you have configured autoconnect option like below in .vmx file from your VM directory

usb.autoConnect.device0 = "vid:pid"

then the device will be automatically connected to the VM when plugged in or at VM power on. Please see VMware Knowledge Base

In this situation, just remove above entry from .vmx file

2) If you have configured to ask VMware Workstation to always connect a specific USB device to a VM, and remember the choice, the USB device will be automatically connected to the VM when plugged in. To prevent this, please remove corresponding entry from %programdata%\VMware\VMware USB Arbitration Service\usbarb.rules. After removed, please plug in the USB device again, and make it connect to the host and remember the choice.

Let me if it works for you.

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Falcon55
Contributor
Contributor

unfortunately, the conetnt of this file (2) is

{

  "version": 1,

  "rules": []

}

so no entry there. The USB Device is an USB HUB with Network Adapter, and I want the network adapter to be connected to the host automatically.

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bonnie201110141
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Then please do the following to enable logs:

1) VM > Settings > Optoins > Advanced > Gather debugging information to Full, and check "Gather verbose USB debugging information"

2) Power on the VM and reproduce the issue

Please then attach vmware.log from your VM directory.

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