virtualbox.org

Hey Everyone, for consistency I'll layout what I have done so far.
I successfully virtualized a Windows XP 32Bit machine that a company needs to use a specialized piece of hardware/software that uses a parallel connection.
I created a VM on a Windows 7 64Bit Machine with a PCI Parallel port.
I followed the instructions on a sticky on these forums to setup a passthrough and I was able to print from the Guest to a parallel printer that was hooked up to the host.
I took that exact VM and moved it out of my testbed and onto the Windows 8.1 Machine and hooked up the same printer as my test.
The W8 host was able to print to the parallel printer.
When I ran the same commands that I ran on the W7 machine they all went through without an issue.
Started the VM and tried to print and it didn't do anything. No matter what I try, the VM will not print to the printer.

Ive been banging my head against this for hours now, trying different settings and installing/reinstalling drives/cards etc.

Is this just a baseline incompatibility with Windows 8? That is the only real inconsistency between my Testbed and the Live.

The worst part is that the printer is only the test! Eventually, I'd like to be able to get this vm to accept a Parallel Security Dongle.

Any help would be appreciated.

Just read the minimum requirements for assistance sticky. Sorry! Running most current version of Vbox. Guest additions is NOT installed and I am not by the "live" host so I cant attach a log right now.

Host is Windows 8.1 64bit -8Gb installed
Guest is Windows XP 32bit - 1GB allocated

Update: I installed guest additions and tried various settings in Compatibility mode and as an administrator and I have nothing to show for it. It looks like windows 8.1 just does not like to share its parallel port. As soon as I turn the XP Guest machine on in a W7 host, it starts printing without even fully logging on which makes me think that the issue here is W7 vs W8.

I would still really like to get a passthrough on W8 working so if anyone has suggestions, I am all ears!

If you copied the VM to a new host then you didn't need to rerun the commands - the settings were already stored in the .vbox file. Rerunning the commands wouldn't help, but they could introduce errors.

Zip up the .vbox file and attach the zip here.

Also, show me a screenshot of the Ports branch of the new host, showing the LPTx port that's available.

Also note that VirtualBox can't grab a host port that's already been grabbed by a host printer driver.

Thanks for getting back to me!

I decided to retrace my steps; what I have right now is a clean copy of the XP VHD before I did any tinkering. On the W7 machine, I made a new VM; I entered the below code: I installed the printer driver on the guest.
Test print....

Nothing.

It doesnt work on my W7 host machine anymore.

Ive attached my "clean" VM file and screencap of W7 hosts device manager.


Thanks for you help!

VHD? You don't copy VMs around by copying the bare HD. That will lose all your VM settings.

Instructions for moving a VM are here. Is that what you did?

I moved the VHD and the VM together, The VHD resides on an external drive which I brought with me to the Win8 host machine. I moved the VM over to the virtualbox VM folder and added it through the GUI.

Well, the .vbox file looks ok to me, so provided LPT3: is not otherwise occupied on the host, it should be available to the guest.

To be honest I know next to nothing about parallel ports. Is there a way to ensure that the port hasnt been grabbed by something? The only place I know where to look is in the general printing ports area. Normally if a printer is occupying a port it would be listed next to it.

Thanks again

rainfly wrote:To be honest I know next to nothing about parallel ports. Is there a way to ensure that the port hasnt been grabbed by something?

The only way I know would be to try to open LPT3: using another application. However, I don't have any recommendations for available applications - I haven't personally used an LPTx port for a couple years. And I can't remember the last time I used one seriously.

However, the only likely culprit IMHO would be a printer driver on the host.

However, the only likely culprit IMHO would be a printer driver on the host.

My thoughts as well. But I went in and deleted the printer, driver and ensured that the port was clear. Still not printing!

Is there some reason why you are not using LPT1? From the looks of it that would be the right port as LPT3 looks like a PCI extension card. IMHO the printer port part of VBox is kind of a kludge anyway and using non-standard ports might be impossible.

I meant to ask that too. I assumed that LPT1 was present on the motherboard, but not actually available round back.

Perryg wrote:Is there some reason why you are not using LPT1?

There is no parallel port on my computer beyond the PCI card. I have no idea why it says that there is one.

So get this, I turned off the printer and uninstalled the PCI card drivers. Then I refreshed Device Manager and it pulled up the drivers for the PCI card. Then I turned the printer on and it auto installed itself. So I went into its settings and pointed the printer towards a localhost port and pointed its drivers to null and turned on my VM and without even logging on, something started printing something that must have been left in the queue .

Now this is all done on a W7 machine and I the end goal is still W8 but it looks like the printer drivers were still somehow grabbing the port.

rainfly wrote:There is no parallel port on my computer beyond the PCI card. I have no idea why it says that there is one.

It'll be there on the motherboard, a feature of the standard chipset used. If it's a desktop PC in a midi case then if you remove the cover you might be able to find a ribbon cable header that's supposed to provide a connection to the removable backplane bit. You probably can't get the stock cable and backplane bit, but I guess it'd be easy enough to bodge together.

Personally, it isn't necessarily something I would bother doing. Windows drivers aren't going to distinguish feature-wise between m/b and PCI parallel ports. The only question would be if the LPT driver chip supports the features you need... and I wouldn't expect either a printer or a security dongle to make strenuous demands.