Attach USB device to Hyper-V guest machine

Omid Shojaee 116

Hello,

We have a software installed on one of our Hyper-V guest machines running Windows 2022 Datacenter edition. This software requires a hardware lock which is a USB device. The device is inserted into the USB port of the server, and the host machine sees it as an Input Device.

I need to somehow "attach" that USB device to the guest machine permanently and make it visible to the guest OS otherwise that software won't work. What is the solution?

The host machine is Windows 2022 Datacenter edition.

bob onit 0 Reputation points

2024-04-24T19:39:43.45+00:00

I am just trying to install os's on the virtual machines and make them bootable

7 answers

Dion McGovern-Allen 6 Reputation points

2023-10-12T20:45:02.4766667+00:00

Technically if you ignore the USB portion of the drive @Tom-9560
Then its storage passthrough and nothing at all to do with USB.

That being said, I don't believe the process is anywhere near "nightmare process" and 20 steps.

Plug drive in, offline to host, edit VM settings and done it now has a extra hard drive ready to go (formatting not included)

Course it would be nice to be able to do USB device passthrough.
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Tom-9560 10 Reputation points

2023-11-01T11:09:27.53+00:00

Thank you, @Dion McGovern-Allen ,

but for more than 1 decade, "Attach USB device" does not mean just using a USB Data stick.
Of course, we expect to be able to attach any USB Device - and there are a lot on the market. E.g. our 2D Plotter.

Indeed, it is a shame that while M$ makes $1.24 billion in profit every month, it has ignored trivial customer requests for decades.

But with the outrageous and greedy price increases and the simultaneous reduction of support and service, it helps our motivation a lot to replace M$ products :-). Excitingly, competitors are actually offering new useful features, such as USB device support in virtual machines. It is just real plug & play!

Kind regards,
Thomas
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Net Runner 505 Reputation points

2024-03-07T09:50:56.0466667+00:00

What is the solution?

The only solution I know to work reliably in this particular use case is either using a different hypervisor (VMware ESXi or Linux KVM) or USB-over-Ethernet software, like this one https://www.eltima.com/de/products/usb-over-ethernet/.

Another alternative is to purchase a dedicated PCIe USB controller (they are cheap) and pass it to your virtual machine entirely with the USB key plugged into it. That works most of the time.

You may also ask your software vendor for options other than a USB key. Usually, they offer some network- or online-based alternatives.
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