How to Share a Printer With a VirtualBox

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VirtualBox is a free open-source hypervisor suite released and maintained by Oracle, and was formerly owned by Sun Microsystems. A hypervisor suite allows you to run multiple operating systems concurrently on top of a host OS. VirtualBox supports connecting its guest operating systems to the local area network. With a guest OS connected to the network, it can access shared resources such as files and printers. You can share your printer on the network so that a VirtualBox session connected to the network can access it.

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Step 1

Click the "Start" button in the lower-left corner of the screen.

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Step 2

Click "Control Panel."

Step 3

Double-click "Devices and Printers."

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Step 4

Right-click the printer to be shared, then click the "Sharing" tab.

Step 5

Click "Change Sharing Options."

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Step 6

Click to check the "Share this printer" box, then click "OK."

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Step 7

Connect to the shared printer from the VirtualBox virtual machine. For example, use the operating system's Control Panel to add the shared printer. This steps may vary, depending on the guest operating system running in the VirtualBox virtual machine.

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