Win7 VM not seeing USB controller

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fizzasist

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Oct 27, 2025
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I have an older color laser printer (Dell 1320C) that will only work up to Windows 7 so i created a Win7 VM and passed the USB thru to it. Lsusb shows the device and it is properly identified on the host. The Win7 VM does not appear to have the proper drivers for it's USB Host controller so I think that is the problem. I have tried installing MANY different versions of virtio but all of them say they require Windows 8 or above (even ones from other threads that say they WORK on Win7)

Does anyone know which virtio CURRENTLY works with Win7?

BTW I have also tried using a pi as a print server but there aren't any drivers for that printer that work with linux either.
 
Maybe I'm doing it wrong? I download the virtio-win-0.1.1.37.iso and then mount it so the VM can see it. But there doesn't appear to be anything to "install". I tried the guest-agent file and ran the qemu-ga-x64. Which I'm guessing is wrong. What do I run to install the correct drivers? Or do I browse for the correct USB controller driver? If so, where should I browse to?
 
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I haven't used Windows in some time but I think you need to search for the driver (on the virtual CD-ROM, maybe select the right sub-folder manually?) from the Windows Device Manager, after selecting the device (USB host controller?) and clicking Update Driver (or something?).
 
leesteken said:
I haven't used Windows in some time but I think you need to search for the driver (on the virtual CD-ROM, maybe select the right sub-folder manually?) from the Windows Device Manager, after selecting the device (USB host controller?) and clicking Update Driver (or something?).
Click to expand...
Yup. Tried that. Problem is that there are a bazillion sub-folders to choose from and Windoze is too stupid to just find the right one.
 
USB 2.0 (VEN 8086 DEV 293C) should work with the included driver, but at least that driver is not included in virtio.

*If that doesn't work, I think you'll need Intel's Windows 7 chipset drivers.

Code: 
 Intel ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 293C

There probably isn't a driver for USB 3.0 to begin with.

In any case, there are likely no drivers for USB 3.0 (VEN 1B36 DEV 000B) on Windows 7. Even on Windows 11, this works with the in-box driver (Microsoft's standard driver).

*Since it doesn't work with the Inbox driver, we had no choice but to use the virtio driver that was provided—and we probably won't be developing a driver like that.

Code: 
Standard USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller

edit

Since I don't run Windows 7 or similar operating systems, I checked this on Windows 11, but even after configuring the settings, it's still recognized as “3,” so it might not work.

> If I rewrite it like this, I think it should work as USB 2.0.
>
> *I don't know why the USB 3 checkbox doesn't work, but you can't configure it from the UI.

Code: 
usbX: host=<VEN>:<DEV>,usb3=0

It might work if you can force it to use USB 2.0, but since I don't know what you're actually using or which USB host controller you're trying to apply the driver to, you should check that first.
 
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uzumo said:
USB 2.0 (VEN 8086 DEV 293C) should work with the included driver, but at least that driver is not included in virtio.

*If that doesn't work, I think you'll need Intel's Windows 7 chipset drivers.

Code: 
 Intel ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 293C

There probably isn't a driver for USB 3.0 to begin with.

In any case, there are likely no drivers for USB 3.0 (VEN 1B36 DEV 000B) on Windows 7. Even on Windows 11, this works with the in-box driver (Microsoft's standard driver).

*Since it doesn't work with the Inbox driver, we had no choice but to use the virtio driver that was provided—and we probably won't be developing a driver like that.

Code: 
Standard USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller

edit

Since I don't run Windows 7 or similar operating systems, I checked this on Windows 11, but even after configuring the settings, it's still recognized as “3,” so it might not work.

> If I rewrite it like this, I think it should work as USB 2.0.
>
> *I don't know why the USB 3 checkbox doesn't work, but you can't configure it from the UI.

Code: 
usbX: host=<VEN>:<DEV>,usb3=0

It might work if you can force it to use USB 2.0, but since I don't know what you're actually using or which USB host controller you're trying to apply the driver to, you should check that first.
Click to expand...
Ok so I tried the "select driver from a list" and found the Intel 293C that you mentioned above, but it did not work. I don't need USB 3.0 so just 2.0 should be fine. Did I do something woring?
 
When you connect a device and a USB controller without a driver appears, check whether USB 3.0 is being used if the device is listed as VEN 1B36 DEV 000B.

Check the device itself rather than the driver. Look up the device path to determine whether it is VEN 1B36 DEV 000B or VEN 8086 DEV 293C.
 
uzumo said:
When you connect a device and a USB controller without a driver appears, check whether USB 3.0 is being used if the device is listed as VEN 1B36 DEV 000B.

Check the device itself rather than the driver. Look up the device path to determine whether it is VEN 1B36 DEV 000B or VEN 8086 DEV 293C.
Click to expand...
How do I do that?
 
I don't plan on providing instructions on how to use Windows on the PVE forum...

If I did that, everyone would start asking questions unrelated to the product, and things would get out of hand.
 
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