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Can't seem to attach a printer to Virtualbox running on Windows 7 Pro 64

The printer is a HP P2014 Laserjet. I installed the printer on the computer using HP's latest 64bit drivers, in the virtual machines (XP Pro SP3) settings added the printers as a USB filter using USB 2.0.

Now I started the virtual machine and everything seemed ok a message appeared saying "VirtualBox USB Device Installed" this went away, then I waited for the virtual machine to finish loading, right clicked the status bar and selected the printer then the virtual machine froze.

It did not recover, and could not be shutdown by Virtualbox so I was forced to use the Task Manager

On restarting the host computer I unplugged the printer before starting the virtual machine, then plugged it in clicked on the status bar again and selected the printer, no freezing, but in the guest it says the printer is "offline" when I put it "online" nothing prints only "failed to print" messages come out of the guest. Checking the status bar shows the printer has been UNCHECKED by Virtualbox if I re-check it this error appears:

Failed to attach the USB device Hewlett-Packard HP LaserJet P2014 [0100] to the virtual machine Windows XP - MRP.

USB device 'Hewlett-Packard HP LaserJet P2014' with UUID {53747ce0-f955-4459-8e6c-e2b60dfcbe51} is busy with a previous request. Please try again later.

Result Code: E_INVALIDARG (0x80070057)
Component: HostUSBDeviceWrap
Interface: IHostUSBDevice {c19073dd-cc7b-431b-98b2-951fda8eab89}
Callee: IConsole {872da645-4a9b-1727-bee2-5585105b9eed}

Have tried removing the USB filter and just attaching it via the status bar - same message
Have tried uninstalling the printer from the host, re-booting it re-installing the printer and re-creating the USB filter, guest freezes as before
Have tried uninstalling the printer from the host, re-booting it re-installing the printer using the status bar to connect the USB printer to the guest "printer offline" issues occurs and the printer is UNCHECKED in the status bar USB device list, re-checking it produces same error
Have attaching the printer to a different machine running Windows 7 pro 64 which has Virtualbox 4.3 and the same error occurs!

My questions (apart from how to fix it) are:

Is it the printer, is it too old for Windows 7 Pro 64 to work with?
Is it Windows 7 Pro 64?

Have attached the hardening log, the log after the printer was "successfully" attached and the log when the guest froze on first USB device connect plus the actual text of the error message

Why do you want one VM to own the printer? Why not just share it on the network so that the host and all VMs can access it?

If no other PCs need the printer, share it on a host only network. If other PCs need the printer, share it on the physical network and bridge the VM to the same network.

The printer is shared in the VM's on the main data network the VM's only access.
The host PC's require printers to obviously print things but they are not networked and use a DHCP router to access the internet.

The topology is basically this:

VM's - part of main company internal network of "physical" PC's running an application based on an NT4 network
Host - uses DHCP internet router for e-mail etc. which for company security reasons is why the main internal network has no internet access thus the VM solution means one computer per user rather than two. Also the hosts have access to a Dell Laser printer for printing e-mails etc.

This all worked fine until the Windows 7 Pro 64 bit computers arrived! We have another department running the same setup using XP hosts and no issues.

DrRog wrote:The printer is shared in the VM's on the main data network the VM's only access.

Eh? Why all the talk about USB filters if the printer is a network share? You do realize that adding a USB filter for a network share will kill the network share? Basically you would be telling the host to share the printer, then unplugging the printer.

Disable the USB interface in the VM. Not needed. You are (or should be) using the network connection to talk to the printer, not USB. The host uses USB to talk to the printer, but that is irrelevant to everyone else.

Because the shared printer on the network IS the HP P2014

That doesn't answer my question, or indeed address anything that I've said.

I've tried to be as clear as possible, and if you want help then it's time for you to consider my responses and do the same.

Last try. The VM is either connecting to the printer using a network share, or the VM is connected to it using USB. Doing both is impossible. So which is it? The only remaining possibility is "not connected at all".

The VM is connected to the host HP P2014 printer by USB this is then shared as a printer on the internal network by the VM so other VM's in the office can print from it I.e. a network share

So we are back to the question in my first response.

The VM owns the printer and then shares it on a network? Why not have the host own and share the printer? That way the complexities and overhead of virtualizing a USB interface won't be needed.

Is there perhaps a factor that you haven't yet mentioned? E.g. is there some reason the host can't use this printer directly? Since your first post mentions uninstalling the printer on the host (implying that there are or were drivers installed), the answer to this would appear to be no, in which case I don't understand why you want to select the most complex of available configurations.

I suspect the clue here is the internal network to keep the guests separate from the local LAN. Is that the case OP?

mpack wrote:So we are back to the question in my first response.

The VM owns the printer and then shares it on a network? Why not have the host own and share the printer? That way the complexities and overhead of virtualizing a USB interface won't be needed.

Is there perhaps a factor that you haven't yet mentioned? E.g. is there some reason the host can't use this printer directly? Since your first post mentions uninstalling the printer on the host (implying that there are or were drivers installed), the answer to this would appear to be no, in which case I don't understand why you want to select the most complex of available configurations.

Yes the VM owns the host USB printer and shares it on the network because the other VM's need to print to it and they are all on a fixed IP NT4 based network so that hosts VM is on all day so the others can print to it. The host needs to print as well separately from the VM as you can't print from the host with the VM running hence the two printers.

This still does not answer why it works under XP and does not under Win 7 Pro 64 OR why attaching ANY printer to one of the other VM's in any capacity produces the SAME errors?