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Following this question and this answer, I would like to know if there is any way to tell Windows to ignore selected USB peripherals, in order to have them available in the guest virtual machine.

In my particular case I'm using Windows 7 64bit (host) and Ubuntu 10.10 64bit (guest).

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Im using Ubuntu 10.1064 bit host and virtual win7 64 bit but the win7 does not see the usb devices. Will this USB filter still work the other way around? Also the win7 is not stable in virtual for some reason, it crashes and shuts down when I run any programs on the vm. I thought a vm would be stable running over linux platforms. – user65826 Feb 2 '11 at 22:46

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There is no way to tell Windows to ignore the USB device if you want your virtual machine to see it. The only reason the virtual machine sees it is because the host OS sees it in the first place. The host OS is lying directly on the hardware so it has to pass through that layer to find your software which is being run on top of the host OS.

What you really want is to set up a USB filter as described in the answer you linked to. This will allow the host to pass through the device to your vm when plugged in, which will do what you want.

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does that mean that I have to replug all the relevant devices each time after booting the virtual machine? – UncleZeiv Nov 24 '10 at 1:10
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No, set up a filter. itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/server-virtualization/… . With all of the customization you are doing on your vm you may as well just dual boot. – John T Nov 24 '10 at 1:38
I've been dual booting for years and I'm sick and tired of it. Let's see how far I get with virtualization. Turns out I misunderstood the USB filtering thing (it's not particularly well explained in the docs), so yes, it does work when you use that. On the other hand, USB support doesn't seem to be 100% stable/reliable, unfortunately. – UncleZeiv Dec 8 '10 at 9:48

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