6.5.1

Add a Parallel Port to a Virtual Machine vSphere Web Client
To connect peripheral devices to virtual machines, such as printers or scanners, you can use a parallel
port. You send the output of such devices to a file on the host computer.
Note If you are adding a parallel port to a virtual machine that runs on an ESXi 4.1 or earlier host, you
can also select to send output to a physical parallel port on the host. This option is not available with ESXi
5.0 and later host versions.
Important With virtual hardware version 11 and later, if you configure a virtual machine without parallel
ports, they are entirely removed from the virtual chipset and they are not visible to the guest OS.
Prerequisites
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Verify that the virtual machine is turned off. You cannot add or remove parallel ports if the virtual
machine is turned on.
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Verify that you have the Virtual machine.Configuration.Add or remove device privilege on the
virtual machine.
Procedure
1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, select Parallel Port from the New device drop-down menu, and click
Add.
The parallel port appears at the bottom of the virtual device list.
3 Expand New Parallel port, and click Browse to locate a folder to create the file in.
4 Type a name for the file in the Save As text box and click OK.
The file path appears in the Connection text box.
5 (Optional) Select Connect At Power On to connect the device when the virtual machine powers on.
6 Click OK.
Output from the attached peripheral device is read to the newly created file.
Virtual Disk Configuration
You can add large-capacity virtual disks to virtual machines and add more space to existing disks, even
when the virtual machine is running. You can set most of the virtual disk parameters during virtual
machine creation or after you install the guest operating system.
You can store virtual machine data in a new virtual disk, an existing virtual disk, or a mapped SAN LUN. A
virtual disk appears as a single hard disk to the guest operating system. The virtual disk is composed of
one or more files on the host file system. You can copy or move virtual disks on the same hosts or
between hosts.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
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