How can I install a legacy printer using Hyper V?

Hello folks! Can anyone help me save two perfectly good devices from landfill?

I have an old legacy printer (Dell 3010cn) the drivers of which are not compatible with my laptop running Windows 10 Pro. They cause MS Publisher and MS Outlook 2016 to crash when I try to print from them, or even opening a MS Publisher document will cause it to crash right away. The situation resolves when I remove the Dell 3010cn from devices and printers in control panel and/or remove the drivers. There is no option visible to run it in compatibility mode.

My objective is to keep using my Dell printer and thumb my nose at the tech companies who want me to send it to landfill and buy a new one. My printer is still working ok.

I would like to create a Virtual Machine running Windows XP using Hyper-V in my Windows 10 Pro. Does anyone know if or how I can then install the Dell 3010cn printer in that virtual machine so I can keep using it? The only small piece of info I've found on doing this, is that technically this is possible to install it on the virtual machine, but the virtual machine must be able to find the printer on the host machine in order to work. The problem is, I cannot install it on the host machine because of the compatibility issues described above. So my goal is to install the Dell 3010cn printer ONLY on the virtual machine running Windows XP and be able to use it.

I accomplished this feat with a very old HP scanner (HP scanjet 3570c) using a VMWare virtual machine running XP. But it didn't work with the Dell printer because VMWare needs to be able to see the printer on the host computer (as mentioned above). The other problem with VMWare is that it requires me to disable Window 10's Core Isolation security feature (and Hyper-V) which I'd rather not do. I'm hoping there is a way to use Windows 10 Hyper-V virtual machine with both old devices and keep Core Isolation enabled.

I'd appreciate any advice or suggestions on how to do this (if it's even possible). I am happy to send a thank you gift certificate to the person who can help me reach my goal. Thank you.

Hi,

This printer has a Fast Ethernet interface, maybe your could connect it to your router and use it over the network instead.

Thank you folks for the suggestions. There have been strange things going on which may provide an easier solution to this whole thing. I am posting this in case anyone else is having the same or similar issue.

After removing the Dell printer and drivers via Control Panel (a convoluted process involving temporarily stopping the print spooler in services.msc), the above-described issues resolved. When I turned the printer on at a later time, it re-appeared in Devices & Printers along with its driver (visible under print server properties). The printer is connected via USB. The the issues did not return - at least not right away.

The next day the issues partially returned: Outlook no longer crashed when printing to PDF, but some MS Publisher documents (not all) would cause Publisher to crash when opened , just like before. Again, I removed the printer (not its drivers this time) and the Publisher issue is resolved again.

So it looks like I may have found a work-around as follows: remove the Dell 3010cn printer from Devices & Printers and leave it turned off. Only turn it on when something needs to be printed and it will re-appear in Devices & Printers. When finished printing, turn it off again remove it from Devices & Printers.

This is very strange - does anyone have a theory on what is going on here? Thank you.

Are you using this driver ?

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en...3010cn/drivers

Unfortunately the workaround you created has a risk to corrupt USB / Printer support in your Windows installation.

I would be really tempted to try over TCP/IP, I have a HP Color Laserjet 3550, I think it's a 2005, and I have no problem printing over Ethernet.

If the printer is near your router, it's pretty easy to try and could fix your problem.

Yes I am using those drivers. Thank you for the suggestion to connect the printer to my router. I've not done that before but I will give it a try and figure out how I can print from my PC that way.

Hi there
If the printer has a USB connection then in the VM add the device as an individual physical USB device -- then you should be able to install its native drivers on the VM whether its XP (note USB 2 only supported on XP) or W7 (USB 3 support).

You could also set it up as a Network printer on XP / W7 VM and share with W10 etc but in this case youd also need the W10/W11 drivers.

Simpler to run on XP / W7 VM and then to print --either save the print file to the VM e.g word docs as .docx and print from there or save print files as .pdf with Ms's "Print to pdf" and use a printer that works on W10 / W11.

Cheers
jimbo