Printers in virtualbox

[Dellboy7]

I have two old but perfectly good printers, neither of which work in 8.

So last night I set up virtualbox and installed xp pro, which I have a licence for.

One printer is a epson c44ux which I had problems installing but eventually seemed to work except I get a message, out of paper, which it isn't.

I then installed a HP deskjet 720c which went in sweet and goes through the motions until another out of paper message, which it isn't.

I don't do much printing and if I could these, or any one of them working in virtualbox it would save me laying out for a new printer, for a while anyway.

 

[jimbo45]

I have two old but perfectly good printers, neither of which work in 8.

So last night I set up virtualbox and installed xp pro, which I have a licence for.

One printer is a epson c44ux which I had problems installing but eventually seemed to work except I get a message, out of paper, which it isn't.

I then installed a HP deskjet 720c which went in sweet and goes through the motions until another out of paper message, which it isn't.

I don't do much printing and if I could these, or any one of them working in virtualbox it would save me laying out for a new printer, for a while anyway.

Hi there

Easy enough --

If there aren't any W8 drivers you'll have to connect the printers to the VM (if they are USB attach to the VM). You'll then have to print from WITHIN the VM as you won't be able to share the printers with W8. So you'll have to have the application --say WORD running on the VM.

You might be able to create some type of Print FILE on the HOST and then print that file from within the VM. Not quite sure myself of how to do that but it should be doablel.

If you HAVE W8 drivers (the W7 one's might work) then simply SHARE the printers and print from W8/ W7 -- I've posted enough on how to share printers between W7 / W8 and XP -- just search on the W7 Forum.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Hopachi]

I've had the same problem with one older Epson.

-The VBox Additions need to be installed and the usb 2.0 support should be enabled.
-Then make sure you have a usb device added to the filter list to increase chances of success.
-The printer should be ON and connected.
-See here in step 2 screenshot.

If it fails again, you should try the same in VMware Player because it supports more USB devices and I can confirm that my printer worked there.

The thing is that VirtualBox doesn't (fully) support all printers: for instance I installed the drivers, also in a Xp VM, then It was OK but I wasn't able to print... just scan. After a re-install of the printer software and drivers, I was able to print and but not to scan.

One or another way, this problem should be fixable.

Good luck.

 

[Dellboy7]

Sorry, I somehow missed this reply.

I have got my new pc up and running now, so will be looking at this in a few days again.

Thank you for your help.

 

[gospelmidi]

Will this arrangement (VMWare, Virtualbox, VMBox?) support a 20-year-old Epson ActionLaser 1000 with XP drivers, on LPT1:?

I have lots of toner, worth hundreds of dollars, that I DO NOT want to throw away - hazardous waste damaging the ecosystem, you know. The snail darters wouldn't like it, and the alligators and snakes wouldn't mate if they suddenly changed color from shiny green to a sooty black. That just might be a good thing.

 

[Hopachi]

Will this arrangement (VMWare, Virtualbox, VMBox?) support a 20-year-old Epson ActionLaser 1000 with XP drivers, on LPT1:?

I have lots of toner, worth hundreds of dollars, that I DO NOT want to throw away - hazardous waste damaging the ecosystem, you know. The snail darters wouldn't like it, and the alligators and snakes wouldn't mate if they suddenly changed color from shiny green to a sooty black. That just might be a good thing.

Hello there, this is in fact a pretty good question. I never attempted to test it out because I don't have any LPT printers.

BUT
First you can easily try it out if you have an XP VM set up. You'll just have to enable the parallel port if not already enabled. Check it in XP's Device Manager to make sure.
Printing in the VM: It might work, it might not, depends on printer and on how good the VM supports it.

For instance in VirtualBox (be it the first one mentioned and maybe the difficult one to get going) to enable LPT1 port on a VM called XP:
--> command prompt window on the host:

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\vboxmanage.exe" modifyvm XP --lptmode1 LPT1

source:
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=51246#p234785
Apply that while the VM is not running.

For instance of adding an parallel port in VMWare:
--> the port might need to be added in the VM settings and then added in the VM dev Manager (if not already present).
source:
https://www.vmware.com/support/ws45/doc/devices_parallel_ws.html

Cheers,
Hopachi

 

[Hopachi]

Will this arrangement (VMWare, Virtualbox, VMBox?) support a 20-year-old Epson ActionLaser 1000 with XP drivers, on LPT1:?

One important thing that I forgot to mention in previous post:
The VM might run on a newer computer without parallel port or not even serial. In that case you'll have to use a usb to parallel adapter.

I believe one in the Centronics variant, suited for most printers.
example:

Vesalia Online - USB Adapter for Centronics Printers

Otherwise you can also find a usual DB-25 connector to usb, like:

http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product/sku/3755651

Your choice depending on the printer.

Cheers,
Hopachi