Ubuntu – How to connect USB Printer in Virtual Box OSE Win XP

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How Can I Connect USB Printer in win XP installed within VirtualBox OSE.

Help also needed to connect any usb device in above set-up.

I use UBUNTU 10.10.

Best Answer

After having installed Virtual Box together with the Oracle Extension Pack and the Guest Additions we are able to activate USB devices attached to the host by right clicking the little icon on the right bottom of Virtual Box Manager to select the USB device:

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By doing so the USB device will be deactivated from the host. After installing the appropriate drivers on the guest you will have full access to the device from the guest.

Note: On the host users need to be in the group vboxusers to allow access on USB devices from the guest. Run sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers <YOUR_USER_NAME>, logout and login again to get the effective change.

An alternative method to enable printing without use of USB is to enable network printing in the host and add the new network printer to the guest.

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