USB devices on VMware Fusion Pro with Windows 10 on OSX 10.11 (Mac)

[shanetaubman]

Hi Guys,

Have a issue with running VMware Fusion Pro 8 on a Mac

Current setup we have 4 USB Label Printers connected to a Mac with Windows 10 running on VMWare fusion Pro 8 which we want to use on Windows side only. But we found that each time the Mac is rebooted the printers don't stay connected and have to click settings > printers and connect each USB printer individually to get them back online. Attempted configuring/fixing this via virtual machine's configuration file (.vmx) as per Automatically connecting USB devices at virtual machine power on (1648) | VMware KB but didn't help as many times I tried wouldn't stay.

Now getting sometimes after reboot and re-connecting printers manually they are renaming themselves to default printer names and loosing all their settings/stocks created for labels. Any ideas how to resolve this?

We don't want to share the printers via the Mac side as there is no mac driver for these printers.

Any help would be grateful.

Thanks

[admin]

Hello shanetaubmanshanetaubman,

Have you tried using this printers with a Windows 10 host and seeing what happens when you reboot the host? Are all the interested configuration information saved?

VMware Fusion plays a role only upto reconnecting the device each time after the Guest is rebooted based on the config entry. From the guest OSes perspective, it just booted and sees a USB device attached and will start talking to it like a new device.

Thanks.

[shanetaubman]

Each time the host is shutdown/rebooted printers are offline by default as have to click usb devices and select printer then come online in the guest OS (Win10). Have been trying to find a solution so end user doesn't have to do that each time as per AutoConnect command line in other articles but that doesn't work. Also we do have the configuration documented so if resets we can re-configure. But we have found reboot process sometimes as well as not connecting on boot resets printer name and configuration(s). So have to re-configure each time which is frustrating.

From OS perspective, it sees a USB device attached once click connect and will go online but don't want to treat it as a new usb device but an existing one.

[RDPetruska]

One quick question - were you making the edits to the vmx file with the VM powered off and closed?  If the VM is open in Fusion, your edits to the vmx file likely won't be saved.

[admin]

Hello Shanetaubman,

Please make sure you added the auto connect entries are added after you power off the VM. Please attach the Fusion support bundle using the steps mentioned here: Collecting diagnostic information for VMware Fusion (1003894) | VMware KB

And I would like to reiterate, VMware Fusion can only help upto the point of reconnecting the USB device back to the guest after a guest reboot.  If the guest OS decides to reset the device after reboot, that is something VMware Fusion cannot control or modify.

You should try this device with a Windows 10 Host machine and check the behavior.If the device is reset on a host reboot, you should expect the same behavior when Windows 10 is a guest OS as well.

Thanks..

[shanetaubman]

Yes I made edits to vmx file when it was powered off and closed but made no difference.

[shanetaubman]

Unfortunately do not have another Windows 10 host to test with. But I'm thinking the fact I've got to re-connect each time on boot might be causing this which is a VMware issue but still possibly a windows 10 Issue but cannot find solution yet. I can post log files and VMX file to confirm I'm doing it correctly for autoConnect feature.

[admin]

Please do attach the vmx file and logs.

[ArthurMagner]

I have the same problem with a Linux (Ubuntu16.04) host under Workstation12.5 with Windows guests