virtualbox.org

Here is my problem:
Im trying to virtualize a physical machine, and the last problem I found is that this machine uses some software that has a hardware license device attached that needs to be visible in the virtual machine.

This device uses the parallel port (the same one as LPT1 printers use), and i bought a parallel to usb device, so i can connect the hardware license thing via USB to the host, and thus, to the virtual machine as a USB device.

The problem is that the VM does not detect the hardware thing, so, im thinking its because its detected as a USB device, which shouldn't be the case...

Is there a way to map this device to a parallel port to the virtual machine?

Thanks!

Use google (internal search doesn't work with short words) to search this site for LPT. You'll find that this has been discussed a great deal in the past.

The upshot is that LPT allegedly works on Linux hosts, with a bit of work, but never works on Windows hosts.

The way the LPT support is supposed to work, the guest will see a standard parallel port chipset, regardless of what the host sees (e.g. USB), so your request is inherent in how virtualisation works. However dongles, for obvious reasons, are usually quite fussy about the technical details and timing of the port. In many cases the dongle will not work when attached to a USB port on the host, never mind to a guest!

NOTE TO READERS: There are at least two other long threads existing already (e.g. here) where you can complain about the lack of LPT support. Please do not duplicate those threads here.

Since I just saw someone link to this topic I will draw attention to (a) the age of this topic, and (b) the fact that LPT support on Windows hosts was since added, in version 4.2.0. For a tutorial see Enabling and Configuring Parallel (LPTx) Ports.

There is chatter that this feature is broken in VirtualBox 5.1.4, perhaps only for Win10 64bit hosts. None of this is verified.