virtualbox.org

Using Virtualbox I have installed 32 Windows XP on my 64 bit Windows 8.1 machine and it appears to be working fine except for the following. I cannot seem to get it to recognise a PCI to R232 Parallel Port that is needed to run a CNC Machine.
The device itself is recognised in the device manager of my host computer but the drivers are not compatible with windows 8.1. Hence the reason for using XP. I am needing to know if there is any way i can get this port recognised on the XP virtual machine and working in order to run my CNC machine. Any advise or help would be highly appreciated.

I assume R232 means RS232, though the latter is a standard for serial ports, not parallel. I'm going to assume you mean you have a USB to Parallel port adapter.

You should read the parallel port FAQ: Howto: Enabling and Configuring Parallel (LPTx) Ports.

However, I'm not sure it's going to work in your case. VirtualBox has to grab the host LPT at the driver level (to achieve all the functionality people expect), and at the driver level your port is a USB device, not LPT. However, it doesn't hurt to try.


I should warn you that attempting to control physical hardware from a virtual machine nearly always ends in failure IME. CNC would be especially tricky I imagine, since I assume timing is important. If I was you I would ditch the USB adapter and get yourself a PCI parallel card for the host. Then the host will recognize it without additional drivers.