Printer & Com ports

We are looking for a solution where we need to connect a Windows 2000 VM to a COM port and a printer port. We are using a dongle on each port for some old CAD software. Can you tell me if this will work on the workstation edition?

I have tried but it is not working. I have the impression that if i buy a USB to serial port then this will work? We currently have a card in the computer (windows) that has the required com ports and printer ports but they are not being mapped over. Will it only work with usb to serial?

The guest is a Windows 7 64bit computer

Please let me know ASAP.

Many thanks