The adapter itself is very good and worked perfectly on Windows 8 64bit with no drivers needed for the cable itself. The cable itself seems decent quality and attaches nicely to the printer. I had some trouble getting a point of sale printer (Samsung/Bixolon SRP-350) printing properly through it and it came down to the printer drivers themselves. During the driver install, the software asks how the printer is connected (various serial port choices, several parallel port choices, and USB), so not knowing any better I let it choose USB.
A USB printer is a printer that is attached to a USB port on the local client system. To send print jobs to a USB printer, you can either use the USB redirection feature or use the virtual printing feature.
Test prints wouldn't go through and playing with the ports didn't seem to work (changing to USB2 virtual printer port, or parallel options). Finally I was able to uninstall the printer software, reboot, then reinstall the printer software - choosing one of the two Parallel choices.
After it was installed and rebooted again, it wouldn't print, but it would print by changing the port back. Worked perfectly to connect our mid-1990's HP 4L LaserJet to our late model HP Pavilion desktop running Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit. We got tired of paying $$$ for black toner cartridges for our Color LaserJet just to print black & white documents, so we pulled the old 4L out of storage. If you've got one of these LaserJet 4 series machines you know what reliable economical workhorses they are. The Tripp-Lite cable worked the very first time and installation couldn't possibly be easier: 1. Have the computer booted up and ready 2. Connect the Centronics end of the cable to the printer 3.
Power up the printer 4. Connect the other end of the cable to an unused USB port on the computer Immediately Vista recognized the printer, installed the driver and reported that everything was ready to go.
All automatically, in maybe 5 or 10 seconds. Update 8/23/2012: When OSX 10.7 came out, the cable quit working with my LaserJet and I finally had to donate the printer and cable to someone running windows. I would no longer recommend using this on a newer OSX system. Original review: My PC recently died and I replaced it with a new iMac with Mac OSX 10.5. I love my LaserJet 4 since it is so reliable and cheap to operate, and didn't want to rely exclusively on my inkjet printer.
I decided to give this cable a try since it had good reviews. I took a risk using it on a Mac since it didn't state that it supported Macs, but it ended up working perfectly. Installation was a breeze. Note that this cable does not plug directly into the printer, but plugs into the computer end of the existing parallel cable. This cable works as advertised if you install it in the correct order. You have to plug the cable into the USB port without the printer attached first. This allows Windows 7 to detect the cable and assign the drivers properly.
Once the cable is fully recognized, then you can plug in the printer. I rebooted my PC just to be on the safe side before plugging in the HP Laserjet printer I had. Once you plug in the printer, you have to assign it to the USB Printer port on the list as that is the new driver from the cable setup. Don't select the Parallel Port and you should be fine. If you need to load the Laserjet's printer driver separately, you can do that, but just select the USB Printer as the local port. Once that is done, it works great and allows. Quick delivery, was as advertised.
I connected one end to my parallel printer cable and the other end to my computer USB socket. With Windows 7, the 2-way interaction with the printer worked fine, proving the adapter to be correct. A disk with drivers for older versions of Windows was included in the package.
HOWEVER, it turned out that my printer company (HP) did not publish a printer driver for my old printer that was fully compatible with Windows 7. So there were glitches, such as a little truncation on the right side of each printed page. So, check that you can get the right printer driver.
I finally got a new printer, after my old HP lasted from 1997. But then I no longer needed this adapter! I used this to connect an HP Deskjet 890C to a notebook PC running Windows 7.
It did not auto configure, so I turned off Symantec/Norton Antivirus (suggested approach by ABC Products customer service person) and tried again. Still it did not work. With antivirus still off, I used the Add a Prnter function and opened the 'Port' tab I selected USB001 Virtual Printer Port. It works fine.
You may need to do a Windows update on searching for the printer to make sure you get the proper specification. Since many of the older printers (such as mine) are not listed.
Kudos to the folks at ABC Products who were very helpful and responded very quickly. I left it at 4 stars as there were no instructions or tips included or even a suggestion that I would find help at their web site (not listed on the box, but. First Impression: I panicked and ran to check that I had ordered the anatomically correct cord for my printer. Pros: Worked great with my old Datamax I-4208. I turned it off, switched the cords, turned it on, changed the port in the settings from parallel to usb, and I was off to the races. The label printing races. It's much thinner than a parallel cable also, so it can snake behind desks and what not with much greater ease.
The blue seems kind of flashy, but no one will ever see it. Value to price: High. It would have cost much more to put a parallel port in my new computer or a usb card in my printer. Highly Overall thoughts: This was a good choice. I'm impressed with my resourcefulness.
How to access a local USB printer in VirtualBox VirtualBox 5.0 includes USB passthrough support. Here are some simple instructions on how to use a USB printer in VirtualBox. If you want to take advantage of USB 3.0 speeds you can install the optional free VirtualBox Extension Pack. After installation start your virtual machine in the supported guest OS of your choice.
Connect your printer to VirtualBox by using a USB port on your host computer. Now, in Devices - USB, choose your printer and click on the ‘USB device to share’. Once the USB connection is enabled, the VirtualBox shared USB printer will be accessible in your guest OS.
The USB device will be identified by your virtual machine and you will be able to take advantage of all the functionality of your printer from the guest operating system. You can now remotely print from VirtualBox. Remember that the VirtualBox printer can only be accessed by a single machine at a time. Software solution to forward USB to a virtual machine Since virtualization apps offer limited or no support for local USB devices, users will be happy to know there is a software solution called. Employing USB redirection technology, this software tool lets you forward USB peripheral data over LAN or the Internet.
Using this package lets you access a USB printer from the guest operating system when the device is connected to a remote PC rather than the local host. These three simple steps will make this possible:. Install USB Network Gate on the machine with the USB device attached. Use the software interface to share the printer.
Install and start the app on a virtual machine and you can connect to the shared USB printer. An additional advantage of USB Network Gate is its cross-platform compatibility supporting Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems. Access USB printer via VirtualBox VRDP You can display virtual machines remotely using VirtualBox. A guest OS started on one machine can be displayed and controlled by a different PC. VirtualBox uses a protocol that is backwards compatible with the Microsoft RDP protocol. It is called VirtualBox Remote Display Protocol (VRDP) and makes this a prime solution for users accessing virtual machines over an RDP connection. Can VirtualBox help with remote USB access?
The answer is yes! When you display a guest OS as VDRP data, VirtualBox allows the OS to to connect to USB printers on the remote computer as if they were local USB devices belonging to the VM’s actual host.