Automatically Connect Host USB Devices

T

tew

Bit poster
I work on the IT staff at a newspaper that is standardized on Apple computers. Currently we have to support two PCs for our Windows-only accounting software, AccountScout, but we would like to replace these with Mac Minis and Parallels Workstation. AccountScout requires a Rainbow USB dongle be present before it will run. Beta 6 supports this dongle, but the user has to manually activate it by either selecting it from Devices -> USB or physically unplugging and replugging it each time the Windows VM is started. According to page 91 of the documentation this is the expected behavior- "autoconnect USB devices" only captures devices that are plugged in to the host system once the VM is already running. It would be nice if there were a way to specify for certain USB devices already present on the host system to be automatically connected to the client OS. I've made a (crude) mockup of how this capability could be presented:
usbmockup.png


If this feature is implemented, we will definitely buy the final product.
 
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Could we the Linux version owners please have this as well?

Luckily Parallels does not have competition in the Mac OSX market, so features are not as important for market share.
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I'm glad to hear that you and your team are considering adding a way to specify certain USB devices already present on the host system to be automatically connected to the client OS.

This feature is critical in multi-user environments like both tew's and mine where a needed application requires certain USB devices. Requiring the end-user to 'connect' needed USB device(s) from a menu, though a simple step, makes Parallels unusable in an environment with more than a few users, such as an accounting office at a newspaper, or in my case, the finance division of a university.
 
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