Dear VMware,
I was evaluating VMware Workstation Player 12.5 to run a proprietary application that requires Windows XP. One of its functionalities involves printing.
So I setup a new virtual machine with a printer, installed Windows XP SP3, installed VMware tools and the proprietary application. However, the host printers are not detected on the guest OS, so the application cannot print.
When digging into the problem, I found that the ThinPrint service is not working on Windows XP. When executing e.g. TPAutoConnect.exe, windows complains about it not being a valid WIN32 executable.
Most likely, the ThinPrint service was compiled using Visual Studio 2012+, breaking Windows XP binary compatibility. (BTW, according to this document, the ThinPrint version shipped with Player 12.5 should support Windows XP SP3 link)
I ended up having to install VMware Player 7 to get the printer to work. However I would like to purchase a VMware Workstation Player 12.5 license, since it is for commercial use.
kind regards,
Banaan Voet
PS:
Steps to reproduce:
- Install VMware Workstation Player 12.5 on a host with a printer installed.
- Enable Printer support in VMware Workstation
- Create VM for windows XP and add printer device
- Install Windows XP and the VMware tools
- Attempt to configure the printer on the guest OS (FAILS)