Ytdyklly

Currently running W2K. Recent hard drive failure caused loss of many tweaks that made the OS almost usable.

Seriously considering Ubuntu for browsing and email. Don't really want a dual boot setup so I'm leaning toward VM on Ubuntu.

I have several Windows applications that I must use. One is EdgeCam, a CAD/CAM program that uses a physical parallel port dongle and openGL graphics.

I guess my question would be: will the dongle be recognized when running the program on a VM?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

The virtualised parallel port will possibly have different signal timings, which may cause incompatibility with a protection dongle. From the VirtualBox forums:

There can be no guarantees that a particular parallel device will
work. If it's very fussy about timing, say for example a JTAG flash
programmer, then I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't work. Obviously
the implementation details of software protection dongles are not
widely published, but no that would not surprise me either.

The answer is likely to be highly dependent on your dongle and your PC - in theory, exactly the same setup could work with one type of LPT controller but not another, due to the way they generate signal timings, and the way that this is interpreted by the dongle. You will just have to try it and see if it works for your case.

Also note that a W2K era PC will lack Intel/AMD hardware virtualization extensions, and hence a VM will be slower than you might expect.

A workarround can be passing a PCIe to Parallel port card, some Google links tell some work, some not.

But most of the users do not know the parallel port inside the guest can be seen as LPT3, but dongles normally expect LPT1, so ensure you can change what LPT number in the device properties of the guest.

Some people also say the dongle does not work on host, but passing the whole PCIe card to the guest, on the guest it works... weird thing is that guest runs the same version of Windows than the host; i think it can be related to host not leting you to assing what LPT number to use and it is using LPT3 or upper number but when on guest it uses LPT1.

All is a matter of testing, so ensure you buy someone with a coment of users that it works with dongles and LPT port number can be configured.

I am also on a search for a PCIe to LPT1 since mainboard lacks LPT port, and also for useing it under VirtualBox guests (not only on the host).

So best solution i think: Buy a PCIe to DB25 (SPP | EPP | ECP) card adapter.

Hope you have at least one free PCIe 1x port !