Guest OS accessing peripherals

[user2504]

What should be the hardware requirements, a guest OS can access peripherals like USB, Printer etc.
Does it depend only on Processor or OS also.
I am looking at running my guest OS on my host Windows8.

Thanks

[mpack]

USB support is documented in the user manual - strange but true.

The best way to use a printer with a Windows host is to enable network sharing of it, and join your VM to the same network as the host (e.g. using "host only", or bridged networking).

[user2504]

Dear Sir,
Thank you for your reply.
Could you please provide us the link to user manual.
And where does the Hardware support for VT-d comes from , Is it only CPU which has to support Vt-d regardless of chipset.

Thanks

[BillG]

You already have the manual. Click on Help or press F1 when you are in the VirtualBox Manager.

[mpack]

You can also find the user manual in PDF form in the Docs subfolder of the VBox executable folder.

I can't tell you much about VT-d, I've never used it, in fact I've never heard of anyone successfully using it; incidentally the feature only exists for Linux hosts. It will not work on a Windows 8 host. Search for "PCI Passthrough" in the user manual.

[Fondu]

mpack wrote: "The best way to use a printer with a Windows host is to enable network sharing of it, and join your VM to the same network as the host (e.g. using "host only", or bridged networking)."

I use a Mac OS X 10.8.2 as a host for a few Windows programmes. But so far I am unable to let the Canon MX310 also print from these Windows programmes. Thank you if you could be a bit more specific about the various steps to enable network sharing.

[ChipMcK]

a Google search: printing guest site:forums.virtualbox.org

[mpack]

@Fondu, that isn't really a VirtualBox question. You effectively have a Mac computer networked to a Windows one. You want to share the printer you have attached to the Mac computer. I'm sure Google will find you lots of information on the specifics of how to do that. You won't get it from me because I don't use Macs, and this is not a Mac forum.