Even with VMWare USB has always been hit and miss for me. Devices that worked on one install of VMWare would not work on another one (even with the same host OS and same guest image).

But it has been a while, I guess I just gave up ever trying to make USB work in VMs

Getting CD-ROM drives to work for ripping audio CDs can be equally taxing in a VM, but I persist and make them work in the end

(and yes, doing you CD ripping in a VM might sound odd, but it is a setup using the the best ripping tools that just work, with all the metadata creation setup the way I want it and baking it into a VM seemed like the best way to keep it working just the right way and not have to spend ages tweaking it back into the right state every time I change machines)