Hi Graeme, Yes, if you remember when we talked I said there were basically three ways you could set up your printer, the Parallels manual probably explains this better than I did:
> There are three basic ways to set up printing in a virtual machine. You can: > Share any of the printers connected to your Mac computer via a printer port > of your virtual machine. > Set up a printer via Apple's Bonjour Printer wizard. > Note: Apple's Bonjour printer is available in Windows guest OSs only. > Use a network printer. > You can also connect a USB printer directly to your virtual machine. In this > case, the printer will not be available to Mac OS X. For detailed information > see Connecting USB Devices to a Virtual Machine (p. 141). Which is actually four ways when you include the direct USB connection - I didn't include the third "Use a network printer" as it wasn't relevant in your case. (Although, as a confusing aside, a printer set-up using Bonjour is actually set-up as a network printer). Approach 1) is the traditional Parallels way of sharing the connected Mac printer with the VM, as the manual describes it: > Sharing a Mac Printer > You can share any printer connected to you Mac with your Windows or Linux > virtual machine. The printer will be available through the virtual machine's > printer port. > To share your Mac's printer: (They then give detailed instructions on setup) This is generally relatively easy to set up and works well and is how I originally had my printer setup - however, as I mentioned in my original post, at some point (in the dim & distant past) it stopped working and, after some time trying to troubleshoot the issue, that is when I changed to the Approach 2), using Bonjour. As the manual describes it: > Setting Up a Printer via Bonjour > You can set up a network printer via Bonjour only in Windows guest OSs. To set > up a printer using the Bonjour Printer wizard: (They then give detailed instructions on setup) I had always found this method to be the easiest to implement and so this is the approach I outlined and which we tried to work through yesterday - unfortunately with your current setup bonjour for windows cannot see the shared printer (I suggested some possible checks/approaches to this in my previous post). Although I mentioned that you could attach the printer directly to the VM, I didn't recommend this path as with this approach the printer is available either to the VM or to Max OSX - but not shared between them. As the manual describes it: > Connecting a USB printer to a virtual machine > You can connect a USB printer directly to your virtual machine. In this case, > the printer will not be available to Mac OS X. > ---------------------------------------------- > Note: If you want the USB printer to be available both to your Mac and the > virtual machine, you should connect the printer to the virtual machine using a > printer port. For detailed information, see Sharing a Mac Printer (p. 137). (although they don't mention it here, a Bonjour printer is also available to both the Mac and the VM, at the same time) > ---------------------------------------------- > To connect a USB printer directly to a virtual machine: (They then give detailed instructions on setup) >From what you have described, it sounds like this is the approach you have successfully implemented. I think it is important to realise that these are quite different ways of connecting a printer to your VM and that you have not so much just "fixed the problem" as implemented a totally different connection method. As far as the VM is concerned: - With approach 1, the printer is connected via a printer port you see in the VM configuration (typically Printer Port 1) - With approach 2, the printer is seen as a network printer connected to an IP address - With your implemented approach (if I have understood correctly), your printer is seen as an USB device. An informative exercise is to select your printer (in Windows Printers & Faxes) and right-click & select properties. The properties pane then allows you to "Print a Test Page" which prints out a list of information relating to the Printer, driver & port settings. For example for a shared printer (approach 1 on one VM) I see: Port name(s): LPT1: Whereas for a Bonjour printer (approach 2 on another VM) I see: Port name(s): http://NRH-iMac27.local:631/printers/Canon_iP4000 And, I suspect, you would see the port name as USB ,or similar. >From your point of view, I understand that you are probably happy to just have printing working again and content to live with the limitation that, at any one point in time, the printer must be allocated to either Windows or Mac. If, in the future, you find that this limitation becomes annoying you really should be able to get a shared printer set-up working with either approach 1 or 2 - however I can appreciate that, at present, you probably just want to let sleeping dogs lie and get on with some work! >From what you say, when you shut down Windows the printer is automatically relinquished and becomes available to the Mac - out of interest, how does it work the other way - when you fire up Windows again does it automatically capture the printer, does it ask you if you want to allocate the printer to Windows or Mac or do you have to unplug and replug the USB to changeover? Cheers Neil (who has also learned a lot whilst checking this out!) -- Neil R. Houghton Albany, Western Australia Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 Email: n...@possumology.com on 1/2/10 8:44 PM, Graeme Winters at g.wint...@iinet.net.au wrote: > > Hi Neil > It is now very interesting that you raise this as after the fix I could print > in Windows but could not print in Apple until I had closed Windows down > I had not expected that. > I guess it is not really a problem as generally I will only be in Windows when > doing some MYOB work > > Graeme > On 01/02/2010, at 8:08 PM, Neil Houghton wrote: > >> >> Hi Graeme, >> >> Glad to hear you finally got it working >> >>> A USB was not enabled and all is now fine >> >> >> I assume you mean that a USB controller on the VM was not enabled -that is >> interesting - Does this mean that you now have the printer connected as a >> USB device, rather than as a Bonjour printer or as a Shared Mac Printer via >> the VM printer port? >> >> If so, doesn't that mean that the printer is not then available to the Mac >> OSX (until the VM releases the USB port). >> >> It is always good to know the exact details of a fix - it can help others >> with problems in the future. >> >> >> Cheers >> >> >> >> >> Neil >> -- >> Neil R. Houghton >> Albany, Western Australia >> Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 >> Email: n...@possumology.com >> >> >> >> on 1/2/10 7:43 PM, Graeme Winters at g.wint...@iinet.net.au wrote: >> >>> Hi Neil >>> Many thanks for your comments and suggestions today >>> Problem is now solved >>> A USB was not enabled and all is now fine >>> >>> Graeme >> >> >> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:wamug-unsubscr...@wamug.org.au>
