[captainpie]

Hi all,

wondering if this is possible? I have a client with a vista (32bit) pc, but we needed to set up ms virtualpc with a virtual win98 to allow him to still be able to access his ancient version of msmoney and the data within. However, he is now wanting to get printed records of all that data and dispose of the virtual 98 altogether.

His printer is a HP Photosmart C4380, which doesnt have a driver for win98 and im wondering if there is a way to passthrough the driver from vista.

cheers in advance

[computerguy1990]

Dont think you can passthrough from vista like you are thinking, however if you boot into the Win98 machine you can install the Win98 drive to the virtual machine and install the printer, I do it with my USB keys install the drivers to windows 98 and have Vmware grab the key from XP.

If you mean you have the win98 drive downloaded already in vista you can drag and drop the exe for the driver install into the virtaul machine, at least you can in Wmware, or map out a network drive in theory to the virtual machine pointing to where the drivers are on the vista machine.

Dont ask me how to access a mapped network drive in Win98 or if its even possible Im to young to know much about win98

[Elvandil]

98 doesn't support USB in any case, and parallel ports are not usually implemented in ant VM.

You might be better off installing a virtual printer, like DoPDF or similar, and printing all the records to PDF files that can then easily be transferred out of the VM to the real machine. Later you can convert them from PDF to a final format, if necessary. There must be at least one of those virtual printers around that still supports 98.

[computerguy1990]

98 doesnt support usb in any case? I connect my usb hard drives and keys all the time through usb using a virtual machine and I can pick it up and browse it and save to it and everything, or have I missed what you are saying?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...inter_software

I have attached a list of virtual printer software not sure which of them will work with win98 though

[Elvandil]

Do you have 98 or 98SE? That was one of the major additions to 98SE that USB was supported. I upgraded many people myself. Though there may be some third-party add-ons that someone developed outside of Microsoft.

[computerguy1990]

Didnt consider that fact not sure what virtual machine he is using I have 98SE like I said im to young to remember much of 98.

[Elvandil]

I just remeber that 98 and 98SE were like 2 different OS's. They were in such a hurry to get 98 out in time, that they released a loser too soon. Then came 98SE, a breath of fresh air.

In any case, it may be hard to find any virtual printer that will do this, but the idea that it is easier to transfer documents out of the VM than to print from it still has some potential. Why not just transfer out what needs to be printed and print it on the host OS?

[computerguy1990]

http://www.filetransit.com/view.php?id=66147


That says it will work with win98 and will allow you to save it as a pdf then you should be able to drag and drop right out of the virtual machine.

[Elvandil]

Yes, but now that I think of it, why print anything inside the VM? Why not just export the documents that are to be printed and print them elsewhere?

I guess if only the Winows 98 software will open them, that may be a reason. But there are always converters for programs to convert older formats to the newer ones.

[captainpie]

sorry it is win 98 se so usb support is there! (sort of . . .)

re: computerguy1990

there is no driver for this printer in win98, only 2000 onwards.

re: elvandil

no newer software can read this data - hence the need for the VM

old non supported data is a sin

[Elvandil]

Then what do you think of putting the data in PDF format? Is that acceptable?

Most VM's support USB if you configure it. So if the printer is USB, you'll be fine so long as you can find a 98SE driver for it. You may need to look for an old printer out in the garage or something.

[captainpie]

im not sure of any way to convert an ancient version of msmoney to pdf :s

yeah had thoughtof an old printer, have a laserjet 4 sitting around here still working! the only problem is that the pc is at the clients home and he is quite a ways away!

i was sure thetre was a way to emulate the printer somehow as a generic printer, and the signal is then recieved and done by the vista driver. i suppose i can be too hopeful of computers sometimes!

cheers for all the help!

[Elvandil]

That is what we were talking about above. There are a number of free "virtual printers" that print documents into another document format instead of to an actual printer. If you can open the files in the VM and then print to the virtual printer, they will be converted to PDF documents and you can then just move them out of the VM.

[captainpie]

aah i see, sorry tis morning here and my head doesnt always work right , i shall give that a go!

[Elvandil]

Look like a plan? If having the final product a PDF is no problem, you then just need to move the PDF's out of the VM. Chances are that after you have them, they can again be converted if some other format is preferred. I have DoPDF installed on this machine (not sure about its 98SE compatibility) and it comes in very handy to print to a PDF and email it to someone without using a real printer at all.

Of course, PDF's can be printed, too, once you have them out of the VM if hard-copies are needed.

It may be an extra step, but then you could be a long time in that garage.