How to synch an iPAQ 910 with a guest virtual machine running on VMWare Server

I’ve been using VMWare’s free product, VMWare Server 2.0, for a while but up until now had not toyed with connecting USB devices to virtual machines. I never had a need to and thought I had read somewhere that it is not supported. Well, it IS supported and it’s very cool. And, with my recent purchase of the cool new HP iPAQ 910, I now have a need. You see, I didn’t want to synch with my physical host laptop, because my virtual machine is the one that contained my Outlook profile with contacts, calendar info, etc. I had already proven that my host would recognize the iPAQ and was able to synch successfully. That was a matter of simply plugging it in and letting Windows XP install the drivers. The virtual machine, however, would not see the device automatically. Here’s what I did to enable my virtual machine (also running Windows XP) to see and synch with my new toy..er…productivity device.

1. Log in to the VMware Infrastructure Web Access screen.
2. Power off your VM and go through the Add Hardware wizard to add a USB Controller to it. The only hardware you are able to add to a running VM is a new hard disk, so it must be powered off first.
3. Once you’ve added the USB Controller, power on the VM.
4. Select your VM in the inventory list on the left & you’ll notice there is now a USB controller toolbar button at the top. Click that and you’ll see a list of USB devices that your host computer recognizes.
5. Now is the time to plug in the iPAQ. If your host sees it and has drivers for it, then it should show up in this list. As you might imagine, all you have to do is check the box for the “Hewlett-Packard HP USB Synch.” That little check box is the magic right there. Your VM should suddenly see new hardware and install the driver for it automatically. If you open up Device Manager, you should see your iPAQ show up as “HP USB Sync.”
6. Now, just install the latest version of Microsoft ActiveSync, go through the wizard to choose how to synch with your device and you’re done.