Don't Reinvent The Wheel: Printing

[tai]

This might be obvious to many, but I am so impressed by how easy this was, I want to get the word out. It took me a long time to figure out how to print from my mac to a printer that was attached to my windows workstation (via ethernet to usb cable). And that was a few months ago, so it's all pretty hazy. That solution isn't part of what I'm documenting here, but basically it involved bonjour, GSView, Ghostscript, turning on printer sharing on the workstation, and all that. That part is the "wheel" of this discussion.
Since I have a way to print from my mac to the printer attached to my windows workstation, I just wanted to piggyback off that in my Parallels VM (WinXPPro Sp2). And it was very easy. On the Mac, in the Systems Preferences/Sharing Folder, under Services, turn on Printer Sharing. In your Windows VM, install BonjourPrinting. (just download and run the install program BonjourSetup.exe). It will install a shortcut on your desktop (if you let it) called Bonjour Printer Wizard. Click on it. It will find the printer you defined/use on the mac, select it, tell it you want it to be the default printer by clicking on the box, and you're all set.
It just works!

 

[joem]

Here's the even simpler way I did it:
Install Parallels and create a VM. Install Windows. Get windows networking going. Create a printer and connect it to the network printer. Print a test page.
Done -- ten minutes from windows boot to printing.
Network printers are easy -- the VM is just another machine on the network, and nothing special needs to be done.

 

[tai]

I agree, network printers are easy. That's not what I was writing about. I don't want my point to be lost. Originally, it was hard to get a non-networked, locally attached (but not to the mac) printer to print from the mac. Once it worked for the mac, it just took two more steps to work from the VM.