IOGEAR USB 2.0 Peripherals Sharing Switch, GUB201

BACKGROUND:I, that is to say we, share an HP Printer/Copier/Scanner, and it works just fine. Our home office set-up on the other-hand does not work so well. As it turns out it's a Windows XP problem. You see, I set-up the computers on a network, and that works fine. With one caveat, you cannot share a scanner on XP. You can share everything else, but not a scanner.And boy do I do a lot of scanning. So, through the network we can share the printer, but if I want to scan, I have to unplug it from the one computer, and plug it into my computer. This (as you can probably see) wasn't going to work. So, what to do? Get a USB "Resource Sharing" device.I had purchased 2 other USB "Resource Sharing" devices, but I couldn't get either of them to work. What? A USB device that won't work? I've never heard of such a thing. And it happened twice! I was stumped. So, we went back to plugging and unplugging. Sigh...Months later, I went hunting (again), but this time here on Amazon. I looked over all of the USB "Resource Sharing" devices, and I read all of the reviews, and then I (with trepidation, thinking back on my last 2 failed USB devices) made my purchase.THE PURCHASE:As it turns out, this device only comes with one cable, so I had to order another cable. Not a big deal, I needed something like a 16' cable anyway. Fortunately, a couple of the reviewers mentioned the one cable thing. I also thought it was odd that these devices cannot be sent to P.O. Boxes, but, again, no big deal.THE PRODUCT:With fear in my eye, I opened the package to the IOGEAR USB 2.0 Peripheral Sharing Switch, and followed the instructions. They went as follows:1 - Connect it to computer 12 - Connect it to computer 23 - Connect it to the "printer/scanner" (in my situation)That was it! Our computers went ding-donk, letting us know that a USB had connected, and little bubbles came up saying that new hardware had been detected and was ready, and the little switch itself went beep a couple of times saying that is was ready.Guess what happened? It worked! I pushed the button on the switch, and the one computer can print & scan, I push the button again, and my computer can print & scan. I was so thrilled about something that didn't require any configuring, or reboots or any bother. Phew!Something else that I like about how IOGEAR set this product up. It came with software, but even they say you don't need it. The only thing the software does is put a switch button on your computer desktop (instead of manually pushing the button on the device itself).Thank-you IOGEAR for making a simple device that is simple to install, and simply works.

Functionality is what I expected - two computers can share a USB peripheral pretty easily. Issues: 1) The bundled software that let's you operate the switch from your desktop without touching the switch itself (even reminds you someone may be using the printer/device and asks you to affirm possibly interrupting their work) DOES NOT work with Vista x64 (not sure about 32); I found this out after making two calls to their "support" line when the software wouldn't install on my machine. Absolutely no mention of this in the instructions, user guide or literature and the web site does say it's Vista compliant. 2) Computer keeps insisting that I try plugging my USB 2.0 printer into a device that can handle 2.0. I do a lot of scanning from this AIO printer and didn't expect this glitch. The unit has an amber light under the switch button that keeps blinking off and on (not a periodic blink - it's irregular in duration and frequency). There's nothing in the literature or user's manual, troubleshooting guide, etc. that describes what this is supposed to indicate. My guess is it's USB 1.x mode (no, a new cable didn't resolve the problem). I've had the unit for about four weeks. Maybe it's just defective... Despite the computer thinking it's talking to a USB 1.x device, the performance, oddly enough, does not seem degraded. So the next time I have a spare hour or two, I think I'll call their "support" line to see what gives. This is a nice, cost effective way to print from a work computer, who's corporate policy governs VPN, Wi-Fi, Blue Tooth, P2P and "Workgroup" connections. This resolves bigger headaches the corporate policy enforcement creates, so for me it was worth the money. A lot cheaper than a Wi-Fi print server too. It does "beep" and buzz and indicate status via green, blue and (the curious) amber LEDs. Really nice - no mistaking what machine is "active" or that the switch has completed its task.

I finally found an inexpensive switch that I can share flash drives between two computers (XP64). I like the push button manual operation and you do not have to install any software for it to work and does not need an additional power adapter. However I found that if you use a long USB cable to connect up to a flash drive it gave me a warning that it is only USB 1 compatible and I started having problems with my printer that is installed on the same machine. I resolved the problem by using a 6" USB cable attached to the flash drive. I am assuming that with the longer cable you probably need to be using a sharing switch that utilizes a power adapter.

I have the device connecting a PC and a Mac. The device seems to have a problem when I switch from the Mac to the PC. Sometimes the job never prints and sometimes it takes like 5 minutes for the print to start.I called the company and they told me to return it to Amazon.To tell you the truth the thing costs like 25 bucks, it is not worth the time and energy and postage to get my money back.Tech support stinks btw.