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CHAPTER 13 Connecting Devices to Virtual Machines
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Using Parallel Ports
VMware ACE supports a partial emulation of bidirectional PS/2-style ports.
Parallel Ports
Parallel ports are used by a variety of devices, including printers, scanners, dongles
and disk drives.
VMware ACE emulates the most commonly used functions of PS/2 hardware.
However, interrupts requested by a device connected to the physical port are not
passed to the virtual machine. Also, the guest operating system cannot use DMA
(direct memory access) to move data to or from the port. For this reason, some
devices that attach to the parallel port may not work correctly.
Installation in Guest Operating Systems
If the virtual machine is configured with a parallel port, most guest operating systems
automatically detect it at installation time and install the required drivers. Some
operating systems, including Linux, Windows NT and Windows 2000, automatically
detect the ports at boot time. Others, like Windows 95 and Windows 98, do not.
To add a parallel port to the virtual machine’s configuration, take these steps in
VMware ACE Manager with the virtual machine powered off.
1. Open the virtual machine settings editor.
VM > Settings
2. Click Add to start the New Hardware Wizard.
3. Select Parallel Port, then click Next.
4. Make the appropriate selection to use a physical parallel port or connect the
virtual parallel port to a file.
5. If you selected Use physical port, use the drop-down list to choose the port that
will be used on the end user’s host machine.
If you selected Use output file, enter the path and filename or browse to the
location of the file.
6. Under Device status, the default setting is Connect at power on. Clear the
check box if you want to deselect this setting.
7. Click Finish.