Specifically, I need to scan a whole bunch of barcodes, and so I want to connect two usb laser scanners to one PC and be able to scan simultaneously in order to get the job done faster! If barcodes get scanned at the same time, the data in the system merges together and drops out characters; therefore, it has to be deleted and re-done.
Thank you for suggestions/apps/programs able to use two usb devices inputing to different windows (e.g., two notepad windows open)
51 Answer
I've been trying to work out a similar problem to this for a short while now and last night I think I cracked it!
The trick is to use virtual machines and have the VM capture the USB device from the host.
I am using VirtualBox as it has good USB support out of the box.
How to use USB devices in VirtualBox
I tested this on an XP host, running a Ubuntu VM, with two USB mice and two USB keyboards. I passed one set to the VM, leaving one on the host. Opened up a basic text editor on both machines and tip-tapped away on each simultaneously with no issue!
