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Table Of Contents
The steps required to make the physical printers on your Mac host available to a virtual machine
vary depending on the source and version of the installed VMware Tools.
n If the VMware Tools instance in the guest was originally installed from a bundled VMware
Tools ISO file within a Fusion version earlier than Fusion 11, the VMware Tools version is earlier
than 10.3.x. Bundled VMware Tools versions earlier than 10.3 already contain VMware Virtual
Printer functionality. You do not need to install the VMware Virtual Printer application
separately.
n If the VMware Tools instance in the guest operating system was originally from a bundled
VMware Tools ISO file within Fusion 11 or later, the VMware Tools version is 10.3.x or later.
Bundled VMware Tools versions 10.3.x or later do not contain VMware Virtual Printer
functionality. You must install the VMware Virtual Printer application separately.
n If the VMware Tools instance in the guest was originally installed from a VMware Tools
Operating System Specific Package (OSP) downloaded from the VMware website, not the
bundled ISO file within Fusion, VMware Tools does not contain the VMware Virtual Printer
functionality. Because Fusion 11 and above only list the Install Virtual Printer menu item in the
Virtual Machine drop-down menu when VMware Tools 10.3.x or later is installed in the virtual
machine, you have to first install VMware Tools 10.3.x or later, then select the
Install Virtual
Printer menu item, and perform the steps that follow to install the VMware Virtual Printer
application separately.
n If Open VM Tools (open-vm-tools), the open-source implementation of VMware Tools
available with many Linux guests, is installed in the Linux virtual machine, Open VM Tools
does not contain VMware Virtual Printer functionality. Because Fusion 11 and above only list
the Install Virtual Printer menu item in the Virtual Machine drop-down menu when VMware
Tools 10.3.x or later is installed in the virtual machine, you have to first install VMware Tools
10.3.x or later, then select the Install Virtual Printer menu item, and perform the steps that
follow to install the VMware Virtual Printer application separately.
The following guest operating systems support VMware Virtual Printer.
n Windows 7 and later
n Debian-based and RPM-based Linux distributions
The prerequisites provide information for you to determine if the guest you are configuring
supports VMware Virtual Printer. If the guest does not support VMware Virtual Printer, you must
use another method to connect printers. For example, you can connect a USB printer. See
Configuring the USB Controller and Connecting USB Devices. You can also use the network
printer to print from within the guest. See Set the Default Printer for a Virtual Machine to get
started.
Prerequisites
To install VMware Virtual Printer, first perform the prerequisites.
n Start up the virtual machine that you want to add the VMware Virtual Printer application to.
Using VMware Fusion
VMware, Inc. 132