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I am having a problem getting an XP Guest OS (XP SP3) to set up a printer that is working OK within the W7 Host. The Printer is an older HP 1200 parallel printer. The host machine is a new system with Windows 7 SP1 installed which did not come with a parallel port so a parallel PCIE board was installed. This board works fine on the Host OS and it installed itself as LPT3 via the driver software disk. The VirtualBox version is 4.2.18r 88780.

The Guest OS was created by cloning the Old computer using the VM Convert program, then loaded onto the new machine. Everything seems to be working and the guest additions were loaded. However, I have had no luck trying to install the HP Printer in the Guest O/S. Everything I try gets me an error indicating the port cannot be found. I have tried setting it up as LPT1 and 3 but neither works. The Device manager in the guest OS shows that the LPT1 port exists. I suspect that the driver for the parallel board isn't compatible with VirtualBox but have reached a dead end. In order to print I am using a workaround for now.

Does anyone have a suggestion what to try next to get that parallel printer to work in both Host and Guest boxes? I am going to try a newer USB printer to see if I have better luck setting this up.

Thanks for any help.

walloon wrote:... XP Guest OS (XP SP3) to set up a printer that is working OK within the W7 Host ... so a parallel PCIE board was installed. This board works fine on the Host OS and it installed itself as LPT3 via the driver software disk ... The Device manager in the guest OS shows that the LPT1 port exists. I suspect that the driver for the parallel board isn't compatible with VirtualBox.

Your Guest will NOT see the board. Just your host. Remember that the hardware is emulated, not "mirrored".

walloon wrote:Does anyone have a suggestion what to try next to get that parallel printer to work in both Host and Guest boxes?

I haven't tried it myself, but this seems like a very well written walkthrough; Enabling and Configuring Parallel (LPTx) Ports

walloon wrote:I am going to try a newer USB printer to see if I have better luck setting this up.

That is DEFINITELY a much easier solution.

Actually, the best solution is to allow the host to manage the printer, and share it on a network. You would do that regardless of how the printer connects to the host. I would not recommend direct LPT or USB access.

For this to work the host and guest will have to be on the same network (configure guest networking mode as bridged or host-only. I don't think NAT will work). Once the two PCs are on a common network you can Google for how to set up a shared printer.

Thanks for the help, I will give it a try.

I made some progress with setting up the parallel host printer as a shared device but ran into a roadblock with the drivers; on the host I set up a share to network printer and tried to access it from the guest but kept getting an error message saying the 'driver is not the suitable for the device'. After spinning wheels for some time, I decided it was not worth the effort and probably couldn't be made to work.

I then hooked up a USB printer (an HP J6400) to the host borrowed from our other system. After initial problems, I was finally able to get that printer working on both the Host and Guest O/S's. We will have to get a more modern USB replacement as a permanent solution.

Thanks to all who responded.

A virtual PC is nontheless a separate PC and needs its own drivers for all devices. None of the solutions above are workable if the guest has no drivers.