How to configure virtual printers on Windows hosts

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to configure Workstation Pro to support virtual printing on Windows hosts.

The Workstation Pro printer feature uses Thin Print technology to replicate the host system printer mapping in the virtual machine. When you enable the virtual machine printer, Workstation Pro configures a virtual serial port to communicate with the host printers.

Environment

VMware Workstation Pro 14.x (for Windows)
VMware Workstation Pro 15.x (Windows)

Resolution

On Windows hosts, you can configure Workstation Pro to support virtual printing on all printers configured on the host.

Prerequisites:

• You must have administrator privileges to enable or disable virtual printers.
• VMware Tools must be installed on the virtual machine to enable printing.

To enable virtual printing on a Windows host system:

1. Click Edit > Preferences > Devices.
2. Select Enable virtual printers.

To disable virtual printing on a Windows host system:

1. Click Edit > Preferences > Devices.
2. Deselect the Enable virtual printers.

Notes:

• Virtual printing is disabled by default on Windows hosts.
• For any setting to take effect, if any virtual printers are powered on when the Enable virtual printers option is selected, reboot or suspend the virtual machines and then resume it.

Additional Information

For more information, see the Configuring Virtual Printers on Windows Hosts section in the Using VMware Workstation Pro guide.