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Support for Parallel Port Devices

Unidirectional ports are supported in all Linux host operating system versions. Bi-directional ports are supported in Linux kernel versions 2.2.5 or later.

Bi-directional ports are used by a variety of devices, but VMware Workstation currently only provides a partial emulation of PS/2 hardware. Specifically, interrupts requested by a device connected to the physical port are not passed to the virtual machine. Also, the guest operating system cannot direct memory access (DMA) data to or from the port.

For this reason, not all devices that attach to the parallel port are guaranteed to work correctly. Following is a list of devices that are known to work and the platforms on which they work.

Device known to work

Platforms on which they work

Adobe® dongle

Windows 95 guest

Rio® MP3 player

Windows 95 guest

UMAX® Astra 1220 P scanner

Windows 95 guest

Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 5MP printer

Windows 9x and Windows NT/2000 guests

Canon™ Bubble Jet BJ-200e printer

Windows 9x and Windows NT/2000 guests

Iomega® ZIP drive

Linux, Windows NT and Windows 2000 guests only

Devices that may work include:

VMware Workstation requires the parallel port PC-style hardware option (CONFIG_PARPORT_PC) be built and loaded as a kernel module (that is, it must be set to m). VMware Workstation is unable to use bi-directional parallel port devices if CONFIG_PARPORT_PC is built directly (compiled) into the kernel. This limitation exists because CONFIG_PARPORT_PC does not correctly export its symbols.

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