USB devices in VMware player

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I am running win7 32 bit in a vmware virtual machine with a win7 64 bit as host. It all works fine except that the virtual machine will not detect usb devices such as memory sticks printers etc. Device manager indicates that the usb controller usb root hub etc are all working normally.Under the vmware player-removable devices tab usb devices are not listed.The same problem exists on two different computers . Anyone any suggestions please?

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Under VM settings/USB, see if show all USB devices is checked.

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Thanks for your suggestion. “show all USB devices ” is grayed out and not checked. “Automatically detect new USB devices” is checkes but also grayed out.

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You have to stop the VM and change settings when not in use.

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Please bear with but I don’t quite understand your suggestion.If I turn off the Win 7 virtual OS and go to settings — usb the same items remain grayed out. Is that what you were suggesting

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Uh-oh, yes, make sure the VM is actually powering off and not suspended or something other than Start>>Shutdown. Then if you start VMWare player, highlight the proper OS and choose Edit virtual machine settings…and it’s still greyed out I don’t know why. One should be able to change any setting if the VM is not running.

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Many thanks for all your helpful suggestions. I did just as you say. Still greyed out.A clean reinstall of latest version of vmware player doesn’t clear te problem. Guess I’ll have to live without USB’s

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Some progress. Just in case someone makes the same mistake as me I had an old guest OS in suspension on the VM player. All the USB boxes now checked.
Clicking player– removable devices–“memory stick”– connect(disconnect from host), produces the following error message:-
The connection for the “memory stick” was unsuccessful. The device is currently in use. Any solution to this please.

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Is the drive shared or have any executable that might be looking at it as a possible backup location? Anything that would look at the drive automatically when plugged in might be suspect. I tried my 16 GB data traveler formatted NTFS and it sailed right through to the VM.

Even if you have a host windows explorer window open showing the drive in any state (whole, file or folder), that might be enough to cause the “in use” error.

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thanks again. I have tried a formatted 16Gb data traveler NTFS. Same message. Also with EXt HDD, USB printer and scanner. Can’t find anything running on host but will explore further with task manager etc.

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Oh, I don’t know what it might be then if the message is coming up for all sorts of USB devices. Its likely one issue causing all the problems but what?

For drives and USB devices with removable storage, you can share them as a folder with the VM. That’s what I do for USB drives that are plugged in more or less most of the time. In the VM settings options tab for shared folders, enable that and go through the little wizard for adding the shared host folder (in this case the whole drive can be a folder), check the show shared folders as mapped network drive and you can then access the USB attached drive/thumb drive from the VM’s Computer explorer window. You may need to go back and uncheck the shared folder if you pull the drive or thumbdrive or something unpredictable might happen if its not there and the VM is looking for that shared folder.

I don’t know of an alternate way for the printer and scanner to be attached to the VM though.

33588-shared-drives-as-folders

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I have been away for a few days but will try your suggestions asap.

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Thanks FUN downtown. Your workaround solved the problem. I have also set up a second computer with an identical VM host / guest and it “sees” USB devices without any problem.

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I had the same problem — USB device was not detected in VMware Player 5.x or 4.x. And, after checking “detect all USB devices”, I got the message “device is currently in use” when I tried to connect to my USB device. Those versions of VMware Player (and VMware Workstation 7.x and earlier) cannot detect or use USB devices that are plugged-in to a USB 3.0 port. When I moved my device to a 2.0 port, the device was detected and I could connect to it.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=774
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=1025956

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