Printing Problems

D

davidhale

Member
I'm running the latest PDv3 b.4128 on an iMac core2duo with XP as the guest OS and a Konica Minolta magicolor 2300w (i.e. a windows-only printer). This was actually a driving force in purchasing Parallels, so that I could print to this Windows-only printer from MacOS.

But it doesn't print to this windows printer from the Mac -- no errors; jobs just sit in the que forever.

Are there any tricks to making this work?
 
Try the following:

Unplug the Printer USB cable from your Mac
Shut Down Parallels
Start Parallels and your Windows VM
You should see a drop down menu at the top of your Mac screen for Parallels. Click Devices/USB/ and look at the devices in the list.
Make sure USB autoconnect is OFF
Now plug in your USB cable from your printer.
Go back and look at the same list (Parallels/Devices/USB/<your printer>)
If your printer is listed, place a check mark next to it by clicking on it.
It should now be available to the VM, although the first time you connect, it may take some time to find and install a driver...


NOTE: If your printer comes with an install CD, read whether it wants you to connect the printer first and then install the SW or install the SW first and then install the printer.

Let me know if that helps
 
I can try all of that, but I'm sorry I wasn't completely clear: the printer is already available (and printing) from the VM, that is, from Windows XP. The printer is already listed in Parallels/Devices/USB/<magicolor 2300w>. But as I said, I need to print from a MacOS application.

MacOS doesn't know about the printer. It wants me to add a printer using the MacOS Add Printer utility. But of course, it's not listed as a printer available to the Mac, and there are no Mac drivers since this is a Windows-only printer.
 
A Windows only printer is generally a windows only printer. However, there are some things you might try.

1) Mac printing is based on CUPS. You can look for a driver there. (However, a quick glance on my part didn't see any.)
2) Sometimes the open source community will write drivers for unix which will work on the Mac. Check out the Mac page at GutenPrint (but with a quick glance I didn't see a driver for your printer.)
3) Sometimes the manufaturer will post a driver on their website. In your case, no luck.
4) I haven't tried this, but in theory it should work. You could try to set up your Windows XP virtual machine as a print server for your Windows Printer. I am not an expert on Windows networking, but basically, you want to turn printer sharing on, then try to see the Printer from the Mac by looking for Network Printers. You will have to do a bit of trailblazing here, but post if you are successful. This would be the mirror image of the Bonjour printing solution which enables Windows VMs to print on Mac printers through a print server on the Mac. (Bonjour comes pre-installed with OSX so there is nothing to download on the Mac side.)

Good luck
 
OK, thanks for your help. Looks like I'm on my own here. No response yet from Parallels, either (they say to allow 3 business days for a response, and it doesn't appear that they read their own forum).

Not that this solves anything, but one of the features of Parallels is (and I quote) "With Parallels, you can use your favorite devices, even if they’re Windows-only." But apparently this isn't true.

I did find a work-around but it's really kludgey. It is as follows:

1. There is a Linux driver for the 2300w, which I found at The Linux Foundation, http://openprinting.org/driver_list.cgi. Taking advantage of MacOS X's linux aspect you can install that driver.
2. Install ESP Ghostscript
3. Install Foomatic-RIP

See http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/OpenPrinting/MacOSX/foomatic for #2,#3

Now MacOS has a driver for the 2300w (NB: the "w" in the model indicates windows) but this is an alpha driver and I've confirmed that it does lay down too much toner. It's possible that this could damage the printer.

Then I have to turn off the USB service in Parallels in order to print from the mac, then turn it back on to print from the VM.

Very kludgey, a little difficult to use, and very disappointing since Parallels listed as a feature the ability to use Windows-only devices.

bleh

Although I've already spent $80 on PD, I just learned about another program like Parallels Desktop (Vmware-something) so I'll see if I can find that and maybe it will do what Parallels claimed.

tnx
 
So I liked your option #4, setup a Windows print server. MacOS X says it is able to print to windows network printers, and gives instructions on how to do this. I've turned on sharing in the VM and am sharing the printer. The problem now is that MacOS doesn't see my VM in the network workgroup list.

Any ideas on that?
 
By the way, Parallels never promised to allow Windows printers to work in OSX, it promised to let Windows printers work in Windows, which runs under OSX.

To set up your shared printer in Windows, this may get you started.

In OS/X (just about anywhere) click File/Print
In the Print Dialog Box click Printer/Shared Printers (just to see if yours shows up. Probably not, eh?)
Now, click ADD PRINTER. This will start the printer setup utility.
In the Printer Browser, click on IP Printer
In Protocol, try INternet Printing Protocol for starters
At the bottom of the dialogue box, click More printers
Click Windows Printing, and try to navigate to your printer, either through the Windows Domain or Workgroup, or through Network Neighborhood. (I just did it and found all my neighbor's printers on unsecured wireless router networks, hee)
 
Well, you are correct that Parallels didn't specifically promise that you could use windows printers; they just said that you could use windows devices. This quote was taken from their website today, "With Parallels you can use your favorite devices, even if they're Windows only." I suppose it was my mistake to assume that a printer was a device, or perhaps that not all devices work (unfortunately for me, my laser printer was my favorite device).

So the question of misleading advertising aside, I tried what you suggest. I'm troubled by what could be wrong with my setup/system because it does "sort-of" work, in that I do see a printer, but it takes about 5+ minutes for it to show it, then fails after about a minute of trying to print.

This is the same if I try an IP printer or a windows workgroup printer. I actually timed the latter. I click Add, then after 2 1/2 minutes it shows the workgroup pull-down. I pick the workgroup and after 4 minutes it shows the printer. I click the printer and 5 1/2 minutes it shows the models. I click the model and 4 more minutes until it is added. Now any time I try to open the Mac print tool or the printer itself to show its status, it takes about 4-5 1/2 minutes to refresh (in other words, I get the MacOS "spinny icon" for that long and the MacOS window in question is hung for that period).

Plus, in the end, it never does print; it gives an error after about 90 seconds of trying. I wasted literally an hour just adding and deleting this printer.

Why would this be so slow? You didn't mention the delay; clearly there is a problem here. Even if it did print, the delay is too long to be useful.
 
When you go the other way with Bonjour for Windows, you have to specify a printer driver for use by windows when sending the print stream over the network to the mac print server. I would guess that you need to find a way to assign a print driver to this printer on the mac side. In Bonjour, "generic postscript" is the driver of choice, when a specific driver is not available. I am not sure how you would do this on the Mac.

Maybe some of our linux gurus or CUPS experts would know.
 
I tried both "generic" and the specific Linux driver for my printer obtained from The Linux Project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/m2300w/). I was skeptical about generic but thought for sure that the latter one would work.

In any case, it is so extremely slow and painful just to try this, as I mentioned in my previous post.
 
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