VMWare - which version?

[maximum-cache]

Which version of VMWare will I require for the following? ....

I have an old-ish device (EPROM/PAL/PLD programmer) attached to my PC which interfaces to the PC via the parallel port (in my case this parallel port is on a card in one of the expansion slots).

The application software for the device will ONLY run under 32-bit Windows due to the parallel port access. There is no 64-bit support and I have just installed Windows 7 64-bit in a separate partition on a trial basis to test it pending a full upgrade (my main partition is running Windows 7 32-bit which of course accesses the parallel port and device jsut fine).

The manufacturer of the device recommends using VMWare and XP-32, but which version of VMWare will I require?

Is there a free VMWare version which will provide the required 32-bit emulation and of course access to the parallel port with the device's software?

Thanks

 

[McHenryB]

Although VmWare supports parallel-port printers, I'm not sure that any version works with other devices. You could try VmWare Player, which is free. For this purpose I would recommend a dual-boot setup that will allow you to run either 32- or 64-bit Windows. As 32-bit Windows 7 works I would stick to that.

 

[Pinhedd]

Which version of VMWare will I require for the following? ....

I have an old-ish device (EPROM/PAL/PLD programmer) attached to my PC which interfaces to the PC via the parallel port (in my case this parallel port is on a card in one of the expansion slots).

The application software for the device will ONLY run under 32-bit Windows due to the parallel port access. There is no 64-bit support and I have just installed Windows 7 64-bit in a separate partition on a trial basis to test it pending a full upgrade (my main partition is running Windows 7 32-bit which of course accesses the parallel port and device jsut fine).

The manufacturer of the device recommends using VMWare and XP-32, but which version of VMWare will I require?

Is there a free VMWare version which will provide the required 32-bit emulation and of course access to the parallel port with the device's software?

Thanks

I use VMWare Workstation 11 (the latest). It does support attaching parallel and serial ports to guest operating systems. It also has outstanding support for USB devices across the board via pass-through, especially ones that are attached to XHCI controllers.

EDIT: I do not know if VMWare Player or VMWare Player Pro support parallel ports

 

[McHenryB]

As I said before, VMWare does support parallel ports but the documentation explicitly states that this support is for printers only, not other devices.

 

[Pinhedd]

As I said before, VMWare does support parallel ports but the documentation explicitly states that this support is for printers only, not other devices.

Printers are the only devices that can be reliably attached to the serial port due to the nature of the connection. The reason for this is that Workstation's PS/2 hardware emulation is only partial. Interrupts generated by attached devices are not passed to the VMM (although this may work in VSphere/ESX) and there's no DMA support. A programmer is not substantially different than a printer, so it may work as well.

If that doesn't work, a USB to parallel converter should work just fine because USB pass-through is almost completely transparent, especially when an XHCI controller is used. I've used USB to UART converters extensively on VMWare Workstation guests.

 

[McHenryB]

I'd have said it was easier to just dual-boot into 32-bit Windows (which the OP knows to work) rather than bothering with USB to Centronics convertors, but I guess it's the OP's choice. And, according to this thread on the VMWare forums, you have exactly the same problem with a USB convertor.

https://communities.vmware.com/message/1304531

 

[maximum-cache]

Dual booting isn't an option I'm afraid - I use the EPROM programmer a fair bit and it would be impractical to have to reboot every time I needed to use it.

 

[Pinhedd]

I'd have said it was easier to just dual-boot into 32-bit Windows (which the OP knows to work) rather than bothering with USB to Centronics convertors, but I guess it's the OP's choice. And, according to this thread on the VMWare forums, you have exactly the same problem with a USB convertor.

https://communities.vmware.com/message/1304531

The poster(s) in that thread are confused.

Legacy software written for MS-DOS and early versions of Windows may try to access the parallel port through the IBM PC-BIOS interface by reading from or writing to the port's memory mapped IO range (eg, 0x378). This software won't run on any version of Windows NT, period. However, 32-bit operating systems that have a Virtual DOS Machine can make use of the microprocessor's virtual-8086 mode to get it to work in a pinch. virtual-8086 mode is inaccessible from within long-mode, so this kind of port access is a complete no-go on both 64-bit operating systems and virtual machines running on 64-bit hosts.

Software that is written to treat the port as a file (eg, /dev/paraport0) using the OS API as an intermediary shouldn't care how many hops there are between the software and the device as long as the data path exhibits the necessary behaviour.

If the software is so old that it needs direct access to the port's IO range, then the OP will have to dual-boot at least a 32-bit Windows XP environment.

 

[McHenryB]

Fair enough. In that case I would download VMWare Player (it's free) and see if the programmer works with it and/or buy one of the USB/parallel port convertors that Pinhedd mentions. If this doesn't work you could always try VirtualBox which (experimentally) allows parallel port passthrough. This may work better than emulation. But, in the end, no VM gives perfect emulation of a real machine.

 

[rumble]

VMware Player is free (you only need to register with a valid email address) and supports parallel ports: http://vmware-player.com/add-a-virtual-parallel-port-to-a-virtual-machine/