I have a Dell XPS L702X Laptop 64-Bit running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS for host OS. VirtualBox Guest is Win XP Pro Corp SP3. I have an HP ENVY 5530 DeskJet printer USB attached to laptop for host. I am trying to share it to the guest in order to use all of its AIO features, especially scanning. Everything works fine when using the host (Ubuntu). When I go to the guest (Win XP) the best I have been able to do is print a test page after an error that Windows cannot communicate with the printer (seems like a time delay problem). I have been able to satisfactorily print with it, even with the time delay problem. The printer is set up with CUPS in Ubuntu for sharing. No errors. I can go to the browser in the guest and enter the IP address to find the printer (10.0.0.5:631/printers/ENVY_5530_series) and the CUPS admin page displays. However, if I try to scan with this AIO I keep getting the message that Windows cannot communicate with the printer. When I use the Windows Printer Wizard to add the printer, tell it the printer is attached to another computer in our work-group and enter the same IP address info above (10.0.0.5:631/printers/ENVY_5530_series) that the browser was able to find, I immediately get the error that Windows cannot communicate with the printer. Does anyone have any suggestions to point me in the right direction to resolve this issue. I have spent the better part of 2 days trying everything I have been able to think of, but have had no success. This computer is my wife's, and she has no patience to let me find a solution.

Several things are involved here. First, you must install the Extension Pack in the guest in order to enable USB 2.0 capability. Once that is done, you need to create a USB filter in order to take control of the printer/scanner away from the host whenever the guest is active. Finally, you need to install the full driver package for the printer/scanner, using the CD/DVD supplied from HP (or, if you no longer have it, downloaded from HP's site as an ISO file).

Creating the filter is fairly simple. With the guest powered down, use the USB settings window and check its "help" feature. The printer should be connected and powered up; its ID codes will then appear automatically in the window when you select the correct "create" button per the help instructions. Save the result; it's automatic from there.

Doing these three things should give you full functionality for the XP guest, but at the cost of losing it from the host whenever the guest is active. The seizure and release are automatic, though, so if you either save the state of the guest, or power it down, whenever it's not in use, control will return to the host.

An alternate solution, which I use myself on several XP guests, is to install the printer in XP using the "Printers and Faxes" wizard, as an external unit. This will provide printing capability, only, to the guest; I do all scanning on the host side and copy the result to the guest using shared folders.

During the installation process on XP, you can select just about ANY postscript printer's driver. The CUPS system accepts PostScript files and doesn't need lower-level commands. For this approach to work, you must enable the networking for the guest, in bridged mode, and assign it a unique IP address. You can then install the printer using the full path of the host machine. As an example, here's the "connection" line that I use: This line connects to an HP 1320 laser printer, driven by CUPS on the machine that's at IP 192.168.0.5 on my little LAN. The "631" is the port used by CUPS, and the directories are those containing the driver on the host machine.

Be prepared for a number of trial-and-error failures, no matter which route you choose. In particular, using the first route may lead to the printer being unable to communicate until the host is re-booted, after one switch between host and guest. I've experienced this intermittently and so far have not found any other solution.

There's also an HPLIP solution; it failed to work for me when I tried it several years ago, so I've not explored it since. Others may be able to help you with it, and it might work even better.

Hope this helps some. It's one of the trickiest problems I've yet encountered in the use of virtualization.

cups is for printing only and does not handle scanning protocols. It might be possible to use sane over the network with a windows front end. Normally when you add a printer your using the SMB/CIFS protocol which requires samba running on the linux computer. If you want to connect directly to cups then if I remember correctly you need to select the TCP/IP option and specify port 631. This is just for printing and not for scanning.

Although you might not want to do this, the simplest solution would be to if not already so is to configure the printer as a wireless device and change the XP network from NAT to bridged. This will put the XP guest on your LAN as all your other devices. The XP printing and scanning driver software will connect directly to the printer.