Printing to USB printers in VMWare -- Citrix 4.5, in the Virtualization + Server-Based Computing forum on BrianMadden.com

Hello,
We have Citrix 4.5 and VM 3.0. We cannot print to USB printers in Citrix because it gives a communication error. I am assuming this is due to the fact that VMware doesn't support USB devices. Is there a way to get VMWare to recognize a USB printer as far as Citrix is concerned?

Thank you for your help.

Where would USB printers come into play? If these are client side printers then there shouldn't be any issues with the printers getting mapped within the Citrix VMs.

Are you trying to directly connect a USB printer to a particular Citrix VM? If so, why?

Alan,
It is a client printer that is set up on the client via USB. It prints fine on all the physical servers with USB ports. However, printing to a VM server it says Communication Port error and doesn't attach the printer. Are you saying there should be no problem with a USB connected printer on a client to a VM without a USB port?
Thank you.

The communication error is coming via the virtual channel in the ICA protocol via the client. This has absolutely ZERO to do with the hypervisor.  There are plenty of known issues with printing to USB printers.

What printer model and driver are you trying to use? 

It is a Lexmark X71710.  It works great on the physical servers (have about 15 and successfully tested on at least 5).  However, I couldn't get it to work on the virtuals.  Any ideas on what I can do are greatly appreciated.

 

Hi,

I think you mean a Lexmark X7170 all-in-one inkjet, correct?

All in one printers are often problematic in Citrix. Confirm that you have the exact same driver on the virtual server that you have installed on the physical servers where printing is successful.

Check out this MS KB to see if it is applicable:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302361

Also, try removing the driver from the virtual server and create a Citrix policy that uses the Citrix universal printer driver as the fallback driver.

Do you have an exact error message?

 

 

Yes, sorry for the typo but it is an X7170.  I have been using these for a while on physical Metaframe servers and they print well using the Lexmark 7100 Series print driver.  I just get the normal Metaframe Events error in Event Viewer and I already have the policy to use the Citrix Universal driver but that won't print.  Also, I looked over the document you suggested but couldn't find a work around.  I thought it was a port issue because I actually installed a portion of the software on the server and, when trying to print, it gave a 'Communication Port' error on the server when trying to print. 

Thank you for the help.

Hi,

If you used the Lexmark printer software wizard to install the driver and other printer software, it has likely added a custom port monitor or caused some other sort of problem.

Uninstall whatever printer software you installed and make sure you install only the driver by opening Printers and Faxes, going into the Server Properties, going to the Drivers tab, and using the Have Disk button to point to the driver files for the printer (download these from Lexmark). Also, try using the PCL5 driver first as they are usually less problematic. I've had lots of problems with PCL6 drivers...

Sometimes you have to run through the installer up to the point where the driver package gets extracted, then look in c:\lexmark for the driver folder and make a copy of the drivers folder, then cancel the installer wizard.

Thank you Alan.  I will try this.