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Connecting USB Devices

If the USB controller is enabled in the virtual machine configuration, you can connect/disconnect USB peripherals to the running virtual machine. Up to two USB devices can be used by virtual machine simultaneously.

Parallels Workstation automatically detects all the USB devices connected to your host computer and displays them under the Devices->USB menu item and in the context menu for the USB controller (USB Controller Icon) in the status bar. Those devices that are currently connected to the virtual machine are checked. The primary OS can not access a USB device while it is being used by the virtual machine.

Note: If the guest OS is started with the USB controller disabled, you should shut down the guest OS first, then enable the USB controller in the Configuration Editor (select the Enabled check box in the USB Options tab) and restart the guest OS.

Autoconnect

If the Autoconnect USB devices option in the USB Options tab is turned on and no more than one USB device is currently active, you can connect an additional USB device to your virtual machine. Do the following:

If you connect an additional USB peripheral to your host computer while there are two active USB devices already running, nothing will happen. However you are able to activate the newly connected device manually after deactivating any of the currently active USB devices. See the next subtopic to learn more on this.

Manual Connect

To connect a USB device to the virtual machine:

In the USB device list, make sure that no more than one USB device is currently active. If there are two devices checked, disconnect one of them by clicking it.

Note. If you follow the instructions stated above but receive the "Unable to connect USB device" message while trying to connect an USB device on a computer running Linux primary OS, see the Problem with Connecting USB Devices in Linux Primary OS.