Virtual Machines & USB

[JGardner]

I've had good luck running Virtual PC 2007 under XP for DOS apps, including
interfacing the old TI palmtops.

So far, VPC seems to run OK under W7 Starter too - With the significant
difference that on the netbook host the only I/O is USB.

A USB FDD works, and is also available to the virtual machine. Serial & Parallel
port USB devices work under W7s, but the virtual machine does'nt see them...

My guess is the USB devices need to be mapped to physical addresses where
the virtual machine expects to find them, but I don't know how to do this.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

Jack

 

[Maniak]

If I understand the scenario correctly, you have a USB FDD that the host OS can use fine but the virtual machine cannot access. I have just switched to VMPlayer just for this reason. Virtual PC 6.x (don't know about newer versions) did not support USB devices. Using the Vmware VMPlayer I can have the Virtual OS connect to and use the USB devices. I have never tired a USB FDD though.

Also, I am using Virtual PC 6 on both XP and Windows 7 host OS's (I had to tweak the Win 7 to get that version in there).

The one thing I wish the VMplayer (free version) had was snapshot images.

~Mark

 

[glitch]

I use VirtualBox for virtualization, and have found that with FDTI USB -> RS232 devices, it's better to install the USB device in the host OS (Linux in my case) and map the resulting serial port to the virtual machine. I don't know if Virtual PC 2007 supports that, but VirtualBox does, and it's free.

 

[mark66j]

I use VirtualBox for virtualization, and have found that with USB -> RS232 devices, it's better to install the USB device in the host OS (Linux in my case) and map the resulting serial port to the virtual machine. I don't know if Virtual PC 2007 supports that, but VirtualBox does, and it's free.

I know that at least with Mac OS X, a device driver for these ports requires exclusive access to the device, so if the parent OS loads a driver, the virtual machine can't (although it may be able to use the virtualized port, as you describe). This is unlike many other USB devices that can be shared (keyboards and mice, for instance).

The same may be true of USB floppies, but in that case I've been able to get the parent OS to unmount the device and let the VM mount it.

 

[JGardner]

Thanks, everyone - some useful suggestions to pursue.

Just to clarify, the USB FDD is recognized by W7 AND the Virtual Machine
(running DOS 6.22), and works in both.

The USB serial port & USB parallel port are recognized by W7 "Devices and
Printers", but Virtual PC 2007 does'nt see them.

thanks, Jack

 

[JGardner]

Forgot to add - On my XP machine, with physical serial & parallel port cards installed,
VPC sees them just fine.

Jack

 

[Mike Chambers]

not a fan of VPC 2007 myself. i find VMware Workstation to be the most featureful and more importantly, compatible. i've had great success with it's USB support. for open source apps, check out VirtualBox and QEMU. QEMU was designed to be a cross-host emulator though, therefore it will generally be slower but this was required for portability. VirtualBox/VPC/VMware are virtualizers, taking advantage of hardware acceleration features in the CPU.

there are methods of making QEMU take advantage of some virtualization features if on an x86 host, as in KQEMU/KVM. i actually usually use QEMU for most stuff. it's the geekier alternative.

 

[jounkarry]

vitual Machine &USB

vitual Machine &USB

If you do not want to upgrade the virtual machine, there are several options, try one of the following:

1.
Plug the device into a USB 1.1 host port, or plug the device into a USB 1.1 hub and into a USB 2.0 host port. This action forces the transactions between the host and device to be USB 1.1. Before using this workaround with any USB 2.0 device, take a snapshot of the virtual machine to preserve the current state of the guest operating system.

2.
Disable USB 2.0 support for the virtual machine. This may generate a warning message about the USB device causing undefined behavior, and may also result in new drivers being installed within the guest operating system.

VMware Fusion: Click Settings > USB > Deselect Enable USB 2.0 Support
VMware Workstation: Click VM > Settings > USB Controller > Deselect Enable high-speed support for USB 2.0 devices.