You can attach up to four non-mouse parallel devices to a virtual machine. These devices can be plotters, hand-held computers, modems, or printers. Note that parallel ports on a VM are unidirectional only. You cannot use parallel port devices such as zip drives or scanners from which you want to receive data. You can change the device attached to a parallel port on a virtual machine during or between VM sessions.

Note that the parallel port device itself is not modeled by the VM. The configuration file simply indicates where the port is, not what the device is.

Unlike serial devices used by a VM, no lock is placed on parallel port devices during a VM session.Therefore, any number of physical or virtual machines can concurrently access parallel devices they are sharing.

To add a parallel port device:

1. Open the VM configuration editor.
2. Click the expansion symbol next to Parallel Ports.

You will see the two entries LPT1 and LPT2. Click one of these entries to choose the appropriate file type and file name. You can choose a device type of either Device or File:

• Device : Use the file type "Device" to attach any parallel device to one of the parallel ports. For a device type of file, the file name must be a valid parallel device on the host operating system; the virtual machine's parallel port uses the specified parallel port on the physical machine. You can map any valid parallel port on the physical machine as a parallel port on the virtual machine. For example, you could attach either /dev/lp1 or /dev/par0 to LPT1 in the VM.
• File : Use the file type "File" to use a file as a parallel device. This option is useful when you want to direct output or data to a file. If the file already exists when you power on the VM, you are asked if you wish to overwrite the file, or append to it.

For a file type of "Device," the file name must be in the file namespace of the host operating system, specified using a path valid for the host operating system.