Setting up a Fuji Xerox USB printer driver in Windows 7 in VirtualBox

I want to setup a USB printer in Windows 7 in VirtualBox since there is no driver available for Ubuntu. I have installed the VirtualBox Extension that allows USB support. I added a "USB Filter" specific to the printer, rather than the "wildcard" type of USB filter.

My printer is a Fuji Xerox P205 b, purchased in January 2012. Since this is one of those low cost printers that relies on a Windows driver to do the processing, I will need to install the proprietary driver.

In Control Panel > Devices and Printers
I can see my device labeled DocuPrint P205b beneath an incorrect icon (that looks like a small nondescript appliance) presumably because the proprietary driver has not yet been installed.

I can right click the icon and select Properties and then the Hardware tab.
I can see the default driver is USB Printing Support, which I suppose is the default Microsoft driver.

In the Hardware tab I can click Properties and the dialog becomes USB Printing Support Properties, appropriately. In this USB Printing Support Properties dialog, the Driver tab has the Update Driver control is greyed out so it seems this is a dead end. On the General tab, there is a Change Settings control that I can click and when I do click it, the dialog is still titled USB Printing Support Properties but when I switch to the Driver tab, this time it is a little different. This Driver tab is the only place I've found that reveals an Update Driver control that is not greyed out. Using the Update Driver control, I can choose to browse to the folder that contains the .INF file that is part of the driver.

At that point I can click Next to proceed and then unfortunately, I am then presented a dialog that says:

The best driver software for your device is already installed.
Windows has determined the driver software for your device is up to date.
USB Printing Support.

How can I install this driver?

The Fuji Xerox driver has been successfully installed in the past on a standalone Windows 7, possibly using the same or similar procedure. It wasn't easy but in VirtualBox it seems to have become almost impossible.

Upon a closer inspection of the terrible readme file that came with the driver, they want me to use "Add Local Printer" even though Microsoft indicates that is not to be used for USB devices.

Following the Fuji Xerox instructions, I can get the driver installed, but I still cannot print the test page nor via WordPad.

This is what you may need to know to get it working. It worked for me.

Install the VirtualBox Oracle Extensions.

Ignore the Fuji Xerox DocuPrint P205b "device" that appears in the Devices dialog. It is the one with the generic icon that does not even look like a printer and it uses a Microsoft driver called USB Printer Support. There is no point in upgrading this driver to the proprietary one.

There is no need for a wildcard USB Filter in VirtualBox for the purposes of getting this printer working. If you have difficulties, consider deleting it.

In the VirtualBox go to "Machine > Settings > USB" and create a USB Filter in the filter selection dialog by selecting the Fuji Xerox P205b printer.

In the Filter dialog be sure to enable USB 2.0 EHCI Controller. It is enabled by a checkbox that is above the list of USB Filters. Sometimes it is greyed out and sometimes it is already enabled. If it is greyed out and disabled you must experiment until you can get it enabled.

The following step will probably work but my experience was a little different because of my previous attempts yielded a shortcut. Install the driver using the Windows 7 Devices dialog which has all the icons of the devices. Near the top there is an "Add a Printer" button. Select "local printer"; not "network printer". At this point you may be able to use an exiting port which is the called the USB001 USB Virtual Printer Port. Then install the driver either using an updated list which will take several minutes to search or use your on disk copy of the driver installation package. I found that updating the list as of the time of writing yields a very long list of printers but still no FJ DocuPrint P205b. I used my unzipped on disk image and browsed to an .INF file.

A note about the driver image. An unexpected fact is that the downloaded driver file from Fuji Xerox for this printer and Win 7 is compressed and after you uncompress it it will be an executable that in turn also uncompresses. Be sure to do both decompressions before attempting to install the driver.

When your driver is installed, you can print a test page but I find that it will not work until after a reboot of Windows.

My shortcut (not advisable), which probably does not apply for a clean setup is to attempt to "Add a Printer" but after the step where the USB001 Port is selected, simply opt to use an existing driver which also happens to be the Fuji Xerox P205b driver but was previously installed with a newly created "Local Port". That local port simply does not work but there is no need to reinstall a driver when both the USB001 port and the user created "Local Port" can both refer to the same driver. This will get the printer working but right clicking the printer icon will give you two choices, either of which can be set to the default. You can go into one of the sub-menus and delete the "driver" which actually just deletes one of the two choices. Be sure you are deleting the one that uses a "Local Port". It helps to have named your second "printer" slightly differently from the one that used a user created Local Port. If they are not named differently you should browse into the setup to see which one uses USB001 and which the user created Local Port. This short cut is premised on the user installing the driver at a time when VirtualBox is not fully supporting USB for whatever reason and you install the driver using a user created Local Port.