Printing from VB (windows XP) to a USB printer

[smniles]

Hi everyone,
I'm new here to these forums. I use VirtualBox at work on my Mac (OS 10.6. to run a Windows XP environment solely for use of MS Access.

I am trying to figure out how to print from the Windows environment to my HP printer, which is connect to my Mac via USB.

I've followed some of the directions here from searching, going to my USB device filters tab and enabling the printer. However, when I try to print, nothing happens.

I've tried installing the drivers in Windows, but the setup wizard can never seem to find the printer.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

[Perryg]

Did you install the Extension Pack in the host?

[smniles]

I recently installed VB 4.1.8, and had to install an expansion pack in order to even run windows. Is that what you mean? If so, then yes I did.

[Perryg]

How to install Extension Pack
Which should not be confused with the guest additions.
You can run VBoxManage list extpacks in a terminal and see if you have installed them

[mpack]

Note however that having the guest steal the printer from the host is not recommended practice, and USB ports cannot be shared. Good practice would be to set up printer sharing over a bridged or host-only network, though I've heard that Mac servers and Windows clients sometimes don't mix very easily.

[smniles]

Thanks guys. I did have that expansion pack installed.

My Mac is also networked to a printer. If there is a way to set that up and it's more ideal than using my USB printer, I would be open to that. How would I do that?

Thanks again.

[mpack]

Believe it or not, that isn't really a VirtualBox question.

The XP virtual PC would be just another PC on your network. Then the question would be how does your server (also Mac? or something else?) share a printer with a Windows PC - that would a standard networking config question which Google could answer.

[smniles]

Ah, that makes sense. I'll see what I can find.