VMWare Workstation supports USB 3.0 and EHCI/xHCI etc in its virtual machines, and has for some years now (versions before about 9 progressively needed more driver hacking to compensate for lack of *HCI in Windows <=7)
But the instructions and requirements to enable it, are very sporadically explained and only really "covered as needed to troubleshoot a specific user's issue". There isn't any good explanation that I can understand, what the actual issue is being worked around in Windows 8.x and the resulting kind of workaround required. The KB pages they have are poor. Third party pages are sporadic in coverage. It makes troubleshooting USB issues systematically, very difficult as well.
Example of KB coverage: one KB page pretty much says "If you don't see a USB device in your VM, check the USB device is mounted and drivers installed, and if it still doesn't work it's a USB vendor problem, ask for a new driver for your device". Nothing more. Because it's not possible it could be anything else...
So anyhow. The few pages that exist discuss Intel and 3rd party *HCI driver requirements, and issues with "Monitoring" USB drivers and the need for a "non-monitoring" driver or removing those that "Monitor", etc... not at all clear.
I'd like to have this made intelligible, and hoping someone will be up to it !!
As a starter, a decent semi-technical page on it, that tries to explain but isn't quite clear what the background to the issue is, and what's going on. Probably someone who understood USB drivers and stack would understand it easily.
kb.stonegroup.co.uk: "USB 3.0 Controller Driver Issues and Work Around Summary"
But the instructions and requirements to enable it, are very sporadically explained and only really "covered as needed to troubleshoot a specific user's issue". There isn't any good explanation that I can understand, what the actual issue is being worked around in Windows 8.x and the resulting kind of workaround required. The KB pages they have are poor. Third party pages are sporadic in coverage. It makes troubleshooting USB issues systematically, very difficult as well.
Example of KB coverage: one KB page pretty much says "If you don't see a USB device in your VM, check the USB device is mounted and drivers installed, and if it still doesn't work it's a USB vendor problem, ask for a new driver for your device". Nothing more. Because it's not possible it could be anything else...
So anyhow. The few pages that exist discuss Intel and 3rd party *HCI driver requirements, and issues with "Monitoring" USB drivers and the need for a "non-monitoring" driver or removing those that "Monitor", etc... not at all clear.
I'd like to have this made intelligible, and hoping someone will be up to it !!
As a starter, a decent semi-technical page on it, that tries to explain but isn't quite clear what the background to the issue is, and what's going on. Probably someone who understood USB drivers and stack would understand it easily.
kb.stonegroup.co.uk: "USB 3.0 Controller Driver Issues and Work Around Summary"