On Wed, Feb 13, 2008 at 10:17 PM, Osama Salah <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > A print server isn't going to work. I need to present a dongle in a parallel > port to a VMWare ESX virtual machine.
I assume this is one of those hardware security/license key dongles. Are you looking to run the VM on more than one host (e.g., to "float" the dongle around the network)? If not, connect the dongle to a (physical) parallel port on the VM host machine, and use VMware's UI to "connect" the guest's virtual parallel port to the host's physical parallel port. If you need to, add more parallel ports (using expansion cards) to the host. Something else I just thought of, that may or may not work: I've seen a USB-to-IP/Ethernet bridge before. You plug a little box into an Ethernet port (and a power outlet), and connect a USB peripheral to the little box. Then you install some special software on a computer, and it sees the box as a regular USB root hub. You could install that software on the guest OS. You could then plug USB-to-parallel adapters into the box, and access those through the network. But it might not work. I'm not sure if that USB-to-IP/Ethernet bridge supports all kinds of USB hardware. Worse, a lot of those license dongles use the parallel port in weird ways, which don't always work well with all hardware. -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
