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USB printer conncect on Virtualbox Windows

Posted: 22 Mar 2012, 09:18
by oranus
Hi all,

I spent much more time to use HP 8500A printer in guest Windows 7. I install driver from it's CD and it looks everything is fine. But when I try to test print it waits and doesn't print. I try to use scanner and I get "cannot connect with scanner".
I installed extension pack on VB.

Any advice?

Re: USB printer conncect on Virtualbox Windows

Posted: 22 Mar 2012, 11:30
by beny
have you enabled the usb print support on vb?

Re: USB printer conncect on Virtualbox Windows

Posted: 24 Mar 2012, 22:06
by fanthom
hi Oranus,

please add vboxusers and guest to lp group in /etc/groups like in this example:

Code: Select all

lp:x:7:lp,guest,vboxusers
you'll have to relogin to take effect.
let me know if that helped. if yes then i'll push new 'lp' group members to the next release.

Re: USB printer conncect on Virtualbox Windows

Posted: 27 Mar 2012, 13:25
by oranus
Hi beny,
How Can I enable usb print support on VB? I don't see that.

@fanthom


I made your instructions. And also I try to login with root. HP HP 8500A printer doesn't work.
I search this issue and get some info.
This error occur if printer has any storage device like sd card. HP 8500A printer has Disk Drive. When connect it from VB , Windows automatically install disk driver.
But Xerox doesn't have such a storage device so it can work from VB without any problem.

Some post are said that if it is parallel printer VB doesn't manage that. They solve it some printer with using network share printer from VB.
I like VB so much but it has some limitations on printer device so now I have to change VB to Vmware Workstation 8.

Re: USB printer conncect on Virtualbox Windows

Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 10:21
by beny
hi oranus in the main virtualbox panel in the right bottom you have five icon,the third icon is the usb connection ,right click on the icon and it show which usb device are plugged in,choose your device from the list.

Re: USB printer conncect on Virtualbox Windows

Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 11:58
by oranus
@Beny thanks for your advice.

But Problem is not only connection.

I search about what VB USB connection process. Icompare VB and VMware. At a result I figure out Vmware reset usb-storage. VB not. So if your printer has usb-storage on it esp HP versions , VB doesn't control this device.
Vmware deal with this problem to unload HP usb-storage driver. In fact Vmware always unload usb device driver.

I need some help to how we unload usb-storage when we connect printer on VB USB menu?

Best regards

Re: USB printer conncect on Virtualbox Windows

Posted: 29 Mar 2012, 16:29
by beny
well oranus, in the setting panel you can find the usb tweak,but in the virtual machine you first have to plug in the device check it and after install driver or printer software,so at the boot the virtual machine not mount the usb device but you have to choose it from the list,if you have an usb key too i have some printer that in linux not work,so i have xp virtualized only for this task.

Re: USB printer conncect on Virtualbox Windows

Posted: 30 Mar 2012, 04:50
by oranus
Hi Beny

I did your instructions. But it doesn't work. HP 8500A has 4 parallel port. So VB doesn't handle all of them and lots of port make confuse for VB.

Re: USB printer conncect on Virtualbox Windows

Posted: 04 Apr 2012, 01:48
by francois
Temporarily did you think about creating a shared folder with porteus as host in virtualbox and then printing from porteus with the gutenprint-ghostprint solution?:
http://porteus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=822

Posted after 7 hours 48 minutes 2 seconds:
The generic PCL 6 driver should do the job both in linux and windows, first linux:
http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/mo ... _a910.html
then windows with instructions (maybe good within VB):
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... 3314d88f25

Re: USB printer conncect on Virtualbox Windows

Posted: 04 Apr 2012, 10:52
by oranus
Thanks francois.

In fact, I come up with USB device problem on VB. So I use Vmware for better USB device control.

I test VB and VMware on guest Windows 7 usb device speet test:
USb=Kingston DT2
VB copy rate 3-4 mb/s
Vmware copy rate 20mb/s

I add extension pack to VB and also install guest to guest additions.