USB Passthrough

[tpitman]

I hope this has not already been discussed. I don't know for sure because I did a search on USB and it came up with 0 results even though there was a USB topic about USB flash drives not working. That is not what I am asking about, but since USB didn't show any results (bug on the forum???) I am going to ask and hopefully not cause any problems.

I have a Mac and the lastest VirtualBox 4.2.4.

I have a Windows 7 Guest. This guest is actually a conversion of an actual computer hard drive. I am moving from that Windows Alienware laptop to this Macbook. The device I will talk about below was all set up and working on this Windows computer as a real computer.

I have installed Guest Additions and the Expansion Pack for VirtualBox.

I have USB 2.0 turned on.

I have a device that is basically a USB to Serial port adapter. It uses the Silabs CP2102 chip on it. When I plug it into my Mac I see it show up in the devices list for VB. When I attach it to my Windows Guest it shows up as an unknown device and I can't install any drivers for it.

I tried installing the actual Silabs OSX drivers for this device and that didn't seem to help.

I also have other devices that I have drivers for in Windows, but not all for Mac. Doesn't the VB USB stuff just pass everything through to the Windows guest in such a way that if I have drivers there they should just work? I am used to VMWare (sorry if that offends anyone here . In VMWare it is a true passthrough. Does VB do the same thing?

Any ideas on how to get this to work? It is critical.

If this won't work does anyone know of another product that will work? An upgrade to VB or parallels maybe?

[mpack]

Internal search does not index 3 letter words, so searching for "USB" will not work.

Use Google instead, e.g. "USB site:forums.virtualbox.org".

[bitman]

I hope this has not already been discussed. I don't know for sure because I did a search on USB and it came up with 0 results even though there was a USB topic about USB flash drives not working. That is not what I am asking about, but since USB didn't show any results (bug on the forum???) I am going to ask and hopefully not cause any problems.

I have a Mac and the lastest VirtualBox 4.2.4.

I have a Windows 7 Guest. This guest is actually a conversion of an actual computer hard drive. I am moving from that Windows Alienware laptop to this Macbook. The device I will talk about below was all set up and working on this Windows computer as a real computer.

I have installed Guest Additions and the Expansion Pack for VirtualBox.

I have USB 2.0 turned on.

I have a device that is basically a USB to Serial port adapter. It uses the Silabs CP2102 chip on it. When I plug it into my Mac I see it show up in the devices list for VB. When I attach it to my Windows Guest it shows up as an unknown device and I can't install any drivers for it.

I tried installing the actual Silabs OSX drivers for this device and that didn't seem to help.

I also have other devices that I have drivers for in Windows, but not all for Mac. Doesn't the VB USB stuff just pass everything through to the Windows guest in such a way that if I have drivers there they should just work? I am used to VMWare (sorry if that offends anyone here . In VMWare it is a true passthrough. Does VB do the same thing?

Any ideas on how to get this to work? It is critical.

If this won't work does anyone know of another product that will work? An upgrade to VB or parallels maybe?

I suspect it is the same problem, as attempting to connect any SUB device (flash, etc) results in an error....

[bitman]

Internal search does not index 3 letter words, so searching for "USB" will not work.

Use Google instead, e.g. "USB site:forums.virtualbox.org".

That explains a great deal. Thanks for helping me understand about the internal search.