Printer on guest OS

[Suncatcher]

Hello, friends!

Well, there is some question I want to ask.
I have Win7 x86 as guest OS. WIn8.1 x64 as host OS.
Will I be able to install printer in guest OS WITHOUT installing it in host OS?
Because printer is rather old and have no drivers for Win8.
More specific: I want to have opportunity to print via print-server(TP-LINK router with print-server) but installing printer to print-server require its driver to be installed locally.
But I'm not able to install it locally. Is there any solution?

VirtualBox version - latest, 4.3.2.
Guest pack installed.

[mpack]

How does the printer interface with the host? If it's USB or network then yes you should be able to install drivers in the guest - however I doubt that the general experience will be a pleasant one. VMs don't "do" physical hardware well.

I guess if you want to keep bang up to date with your Microsoft OS's you need to upgrade your hardware too. Personally I would have stuck with an OS that worked.

[Suncatcher]

How does the printer interface with the host? If it's USB or network then yes you should be able to install drivers in the guest - however I doubt that the general experience will be a pleasant one. VMs don't "do" physical hardware well.

I guess if you want to keep bang up to date with your Microsoft OS's you need to upgrade your hardware too. Personally I would have stuck with an OS that worked.

Yes, the interface with the host is USB. But the main point is - installing driver in guest OS without installing in host.

[socratis]

Yes, the interface with the host is USB. But the main point is - installing driver in guest OS without installing in host.

I noticed that your Guest is Windows. It has the tendency to automatically install drivers as soon as you plug your device. That's a good thing™. But, if you add a USB filter to VBox it will "catch" the device before it gets to your Guest OS. Even better if you know the 4-digit codes for the VendorID and ProductID, you can add a filter before plugging the device.

So, the answer is yes. I've done it on my Mac (host) with a digital multimeter USB device that only had Windows drivers. The Mac didn't do a thing, I launched a Win VM, I captured the device (not even added a filter) and everything was working...

[mpack]

But the main point is - installing driver in guest OS without installing in host.

As I said, it should work. With the VM not running , plug the device into the host, go into the VM settings and add a USB filter, using the connected device to provide the filter values (see user manual for details).

Then unplug the device, run the VM, let the guest reach the desktop and then plug the device in. At this point a dialog should pop up asking to install the host filter driver - make sure that host Driver Signature Enforcement is not configured to silently ignore untrusted signatures. Allow the redirection driver to be installed. Now unplug and replug the device. Hopefully you now get a plug and play alert from the guest, but this time the purpose is to install the printer driver inside the guest.

You also need the host and guest to be on the same network, either by bridging to your host network adapter, or using the "host only" virtual network. Either way, once host and guest are on a shared network then printer sharing can be configured as on any other network.

I very strongly suggest that you create a USB filter (in the VM settings) for any device that you want to be connected every time the VM boots, i.e. don't use the Device menu.

[Suncatcher]

All is worked good. Thanks to everybody