Installing Printers in a Windows Virtual Machine


You can work with various kinds of hardware in the Windows environment. A lot of standard Windows hardware will work fine under the Windows VM. In this section, you'll see examples of the most common kind of hardware devices you might want to use with your Windows VM: printers.

To use USB hardware devices with your Windows environment, make sure the USB Autoconnect property is turned on for that environment. Open the Property Page view (the Windows environment must be turned off) and click Edit. Choose USB Controller and make sure the Enabled and Autoconnect USB devices check boxes are checked. Click OK and save your changes.

Note

When I was writing this, Parallels Desktop for Mac supported only USB 1.1 in the Windows environment. Although this will work for many USB devices, it doesn't offer the performance of USB 2, especially for devices that move lots of data, such as hard drives. If a hardware device requires USB 2 support, you'll have to run it under the Mac OS or under Windows running via Boot Camp. Hopefully, Parallels will soon add support for USB 2 to Parallels Desktop for Mac.


Adding a USB Printer to the Windows VM

To configure a printer in the Windows environment that is connected to a USB port on your Mac, perform the following steps:

1.

Disconnect the printer from your Mac.

2.

In the Windows environment, download and install the Windows printer software for the printer you are configuring.

3.

Start the installation process.

4.

Connect the printer to the computer (some installers will prompt you to do this). The Windows Hardware Wizard should detect the printer and display a prompt in the System Tray (see Figure 8.10).

Figure 8.10. Windows has detected the USB printer connected to the Mac's USB port.


5.

Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the printer installation. The printer will be available from the Windows environment.

Adding a Shared Printer to the Windows VM

You can also share one or more printers connected to the Mac on which you're running Windows, to other Macs on a network, or to AirPort Base Stations on a network to which your Mac is connected with the Windows environment. Configure one or more Macs to share their printers or configure an AirPort Base Station to share the printer connected to them. (For help with these tasks, see my book Special Edition Using Mac OS X Tiger.)

After you've enabled printer sharing on the Mac to which the printer you want to use in Windows is connected, download and install the Windows Bonjour for Windows software from Apple's website. This will enhance Windows' capability to easily find and connect to resources on your network, including printers. Follow these steps to download and install Bonjour for Windows:

1.

Navigate to www.apple.com/support in your web browser.

2.

Search for "bonjour for windows."

3.

Open the Bonjour for Windows webpage.

4.

Click the link to download it to your Windows environment.

5.

Follow the onscreen instructions to install the Bonjour for Windows software on your computer. By default, a Bonjour Printer Wizard shortcut will be created on the Windows desktop.

To share a printer connected to a Mac or AirPort Base Station, its driver must first be installed in the Windows environment. Support for many kinds of printers is built into Windows, such as most of HP's Laserjet printers. You can also download a Windows driver from the manufacturer's website. You can try to run the Bonjour Printer Wizard first and if it can't find the appropriate driver, you can download and install the driver you need and then come back to the wizard.

In some cases, you may have to physically connect the printer to the computer to get the Windows driver installed even if you're going to share the printer from a Mac or AirPort Base Station. For example, to get an HP Photosmart 7760 driver installed, I had to download and run the installation software, connect the printer directly to a Mac running Windows, and complete the installer. After that, the correct driver was available in the Bonjour Printer Wizard so that I could connect the printer to an AirPort Base Station to share it with the Windows environment using the wizard.

Use the Bonjour Printer Wizard to configure a printer in Windows by performing the following steps:

1.

Launch the Bonjour Printer Wizard. You'll see the first screen of the wizard.

2.

Click Next. You'll see a list of the printers being shared (see Figure 8.11).

Figure 8.11. The Bonjour Printer Wizard makes it simple to add a printer to the Windows environment.


3.

Select the printer you want to use and click Next. You'll see the printer driver selection screen. The wizard will attempt to locate the appropriate driver for the printer you've selected.

4.

Accept the default selection or browse for the correct printer driver and when it is selected, click Next. A summary of the printer's information will appear. (If you can't find the correct driver, you can try a generic one, but that might or might not work. You'll have better results if you install and choose the correct driver for the printer.)

5.

Click Finish. The printer will be installed and configured in the Windows environment. When the process is complete, the wizard will close.

6.

Repeat steps 15 for each printer you want to use from Windows.

To see the printers configured in your Windows environment, open the Printers and Faxes control panel (see Figure 8.12). Each printer will be shown; these printers will also be available in the Print dialog box that appears when you print a document. The printer marked with a check mark is the default printer.

Figure 8.12. This Windows environment has access to two shared printers and one printer connected to the Mac's USB port.





Sleeping with the Enemy(c) Running Windows(r) on a Mac(r)
Sleeping with the Enemy(c) Running Windows(r) on a Mac(r)
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2007
Pages: 58

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