Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

Register Log in
  • Congratulations Mike Lewis on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Need to create virtual parallel port on windows 7

Status
Not open for further replies.
tpadowner

tpadowner

Technical User
Sep 18, 2009
39
CA
I have 2 new computers for my POS system but they do not have parallel ports on them for the receipt printers (Epson TM T88III). I knew this when I purchased them but was living under the hope that a simple parallel to USB cable would work, like it does for my old HP Laserjet 6p. Alas, I installed the latest print driver for the printer but it won't print.

I read a bunch of info about creating a virtual printer port but I really am out of my depth here.

Can I create a XP virtual machine inside my Win 7 machine and install the printer there then access it in Win 7 or, is it all done from within Win 7 (if at all possible).

Thanks for any assistance
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Upvote 0 Downvote
You can run XPMode which is basically a XP VM. If you only have XP drivers, that should work.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks

@ Chris - have not investigated the server idea

@ XWB - I have drivers for XP and have installed XP Mode on one of the machines. In the XP VM I installed the printer and it shows as being on LPT 1 but it also shows as not available and won't print a test page to it

This is where I am at a brick wall

The machine is a Tiny Form Factor so installing a parallel add on card is not an option
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
If I was to use this, I cannot install the parallel print driver on the Win 7 computer as it doesn't exist. I would have to install it in the XP VM so, I am assuming that the printer would still have an IP address that I could access from Win 7?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
That is correct. You use the setup software to change the ip address of the device to fit in your network. Once you know the software address of the device you can change it via its browser setup service. You would want to check your network for DHCP and set the print server outside the pool addresses.
When you create your printer you specify that it is a LPT printer port on a computer, the computer being the print server, which you have named during setup.
Thinking back, I have used them with 7.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I will order one and see how I make out. I may be back to you If I get lost
Thanks
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

K
  • Locked
  • Question
Recover Data Windows 10
Replies
2
Views
2K
Rick998
Rick998
pjw001
  • Locked
  • Question
Latest Windows Update - End of Service
Replies
2
Views
1K
pjw001
pjw001
VicM
  • Locked
  • Question
Problem updating Windows Explorer
Replies
1
Views
439
Nancycaf
Nancycaf
pjw001
  • Locked
  • Question
Windows 11 Screen Colours have changed (slightly) 3
Replies
14
Views
2K
pjw001
pjw001
pjw001
  • Locked
  • Question
Programs not loading on Windows 11 Version 22H2.
Replies
9
Views
495
pjw001
pjw001

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top