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I am running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS as a guest OS via VMware Player 3.1.4 build-385536 over Windows 7 Home Premium host OS. This runs on a HP Pavilion g7-1173dx laptop.
At the Virtual Machine... menu
> VM Settings...
dialog I see a USB Controller
present in the Device list. In the Connections frame, the USB 2.0 device
support in enabled.
However, on the Virtual Machine...
menu > Removable Devices
submenu I see no USB device entry.
Attaching a Sandisk Cruzer 16GB flash drive to the USB port, I can see the drive in Windows, but I can't see the device in the VM list.
Trying to connect an Altera FPGA dev board system to the USB port was not successful either.
When restarting the VM, I get the following error tooltip:
Other than that port, I have a USB keyboard and a USB mouse connected to the other 2 USB ports, both working well.
How can I make VMware Player recognize my USB devices?
EDIT 1:
Thanks to @Moab, I found out that the relevant service was indeed inactive. Its Startup type is "Automatic". I tried to manually start it and received the following error:
I am not sure what this means. The drive (configured as a U3 drive, BTW) is recognized in Windows.
EDIT 2:
Found this post on the VMware Knowledgebase. It suggests that on AMD based systems (like my g7) there may be a conflict with some AMD USB Driver Filter
, and provides with removal instructions and a warning that it may disable other USB devices.
How safe is it to follow the steps suggested in the post?
VMware USB Arbitration Service was automatic but wasn't running. Once I started it, restarted my VM, I got it recognised. – saintjab – 2017-02-23T16:49:20.503
Maybe you need to run VMware Player AS Administrator? – James T Snell – 2011-10-05T00:22:08.073
Maybe try running this VM in the evaluation version of VMware Workstation. – James T Snell – 2011-10-05T00:37:04.037
1Check Windows Services and be sure VMware USB Arbitration Service is running, as the error message suggests. – Moab – 2011-10-05T00:40:27.013
@Moab - many thanks. The service was on "Automatic", but not started. When trying to start it manually, I get an error message. I will update the question. – ysap – 2011-10-05T00:50:07.820
I never consider anything safe, this is why I have backups of my system and critical personal data.. Make a full disk image pr two for disaster recovery purposes and then make a manual Windows restore point before you make any changes. – Moab – 2011-10-05T01:55:07.330
@Moab - you are right in this approach. Fortunately, this is a 2 days old computer which I did not have much chance yet to "personalize", so restoring its initial condition from the preinstalled image will not be too painful. – ysap – 2011-10-05T02:07:28.250