USB printers and VirtualBox

[davertek]

I am testing out the viability of VirtualBox against Windows XP Mode VM. We have a custom legacy application that will only run on XP. VirtualBox is far superior I find, with the exception of some weird USB behaviour. I have installed the requirements to run the USB in 2.0 mode, and have a filter selected to the correct printer, however when the VM starts, the printer on the host goes offline until I disconnect the printer from the guest OS, then the printer will spit out all the jobs sent to it by the host.

I would really prefer that my users can print from the host and the guest without having to disconnect/reconnect the local USB printer. Is there some advice that could be provided to solve this issue? Maybe I'm missing something obvious. The printer is an HP 276MFP.

[mpack]

USB devices are one to one - they can't be shared.

The "obvious" way to use any printer, regardless of the connection type, is via a network share. That way the host continues to own the printer, and all VMs have access.

All this requires is that the host and guest exist on the same network. A host-only virtual network, or bridging the VM to the host LAN should do the trick. Plus enable printer sharing on the host of course.

[davertek]

USB devices are one to one - they can't be shared.

The "obvious" way to use any printer, regardless of the connection type, is via a network share. That way the host continues to own the printer, and all VMs have access.

All this requires is that the host and guest exist on the same network. A host-only virtual network, or bridging the VM to the host LAN should do the trick. Plus enable printer sharing on the host of course.

Thanks for this advice. This seems to work so far.