Simatic PG740 online with Win2000

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Thread Starter

D. C. Pittendrigh

Hi All

Normally as defender of the Siemens faith, I answer these questions, but today I have one for the list.

I have recently upgraded my PG740 to Step 7 professional and as I was using Win95 before, I figured an op sys upgrade was called for. After a
disasterous start with NT4 SP6, I upgraded to SP6a which was better, but then had some problems with authorisation of the software. I discussed my
problems with a most helpful lady at the Siemens Hotline, and on the strength of the discussion decided to install Win2000 which was also OK, but
I lost the ability to contact the on board programmer interface and could only go on line to S7 with a CP5511 which I fortunately happened to have lying around. I have been using the new setup for 3 days now and am satisfied with the speed and behaviour of the system, but would like to get the online interface working as I dont feel the PCMCIA CP5511 interface with its little plugs and cables is the thing for industrial environments. I contacted the Siemens Germany hotline for help, and have been told to run S7
on Win2000, I will have to wait until next year when a new service pack is released. Now I am a patient man (sometimes) but why I should wait for
something I already have beats me, I just want to know how to set up my disappearing onboard interface port and would be most grateful to anyone who may have solved this problem, for an answer, preferrably this year !!!

Thanks for any ideas at all.

Regards
Donald Pittendrigh
 
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Konrad Heidrich

Hi Donald,
I'm working with Step 7 on NT 4.0 SP4 in the university. I tried it also at home with Win2000 and I had different problems. I asked some people of Siemens direct (SW-Team) and they said to me 2000 is too different to NT and Step 7 (like WinCC) goes too deep in the system internals, so they doesn't support 2000 yet.
That doesn't help you I guess but you see Siemens know this problem since January 2000 without giving any warnings or statements.

take care
Konrad
 
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D. Pittendrigh

Hi All

I have been through every current version of Bill Gates's offerings and have ended up putting Win95 back on my PG740. I have an utter disregard for the ability of the Siemens programming packages to operate as Windows programs should. I have spent several days battling with this problem on my PG, the only useful conclusion I can draw from the experience is that for some hardware reason, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was intentional, it is impossible to upgrade the PG successfully to a new operating system. I wish
I could cut both Siemens and Bill Gates out of my life but unfortunately we are cornered and have little option. I will never buy another Siemens PG, I currently have an industrial standard PC standing on my desk which is portable, housed in a neat Aluminium case and has state of the art hardware. For Xmas I will spend the time getting it to run all my Simatic programs and suspect I will never look back.

Regards
Donald Pittendrigh
 
H

Helmut Meissner

Hi All,
Hi Donald,

this morning I had a visit of your siemens sales representant. We had a lot of troubles with update politics of STEP 7 Software Version 5.0 ->
5.1. He told me that in january there will come a new update because W2K. They know about the problems.
I know, that doesn't help you, but perhaps the PG740 will run with W2K. One of my STEP7 programmers had the last weeks a lot of problems with his new PG720PII. Last weekend he use the time to clean it up, install everything new, and now its running good with W98SE.

Greetings

Helmut Meissner
 
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D. Pittendrigh

Helo Helmut and others

The problem seems to be worse than this, it may not be possible to upgrade the PG to the latest operating system, even if windows does work. I cannot get my PG to upgrade from Win95 to Win98, it was supplied with 95. There are so many things in the registry and so many fancy little pieces of software all over the place that it is impossible to edit everthing manually to get
all the software working, and the automated driver installation software that was supplied with the machine only works on windows 95. The driver installation software that is included with the Step 7 and 5 upgrade disks, only seems to work on a PII or a PIII. I have a very expensive programmer I bought 2 years ago, that has a P233 MMX and I cannot write a machine of this cost off after 2 years so it looks like I have to stay with Win95, unless Siemens can sort their act out. I have bought an industrial standard machine from a non-Siemens company, and if I can get everything to work on this machine, it may be the answer as I will at least be able to upgrade the machine to P4 and whatever else may come along with windows 2000 +. I will never again buy a Siemens PG and get caught up in a money spinning upgrade policy on the hardware, their software upgrade policy is bad enough.

It is real catch 22 stuff, you go and buy a replacement CPU or a new I/O card and because it is a later version you cannot configure your PLC
hardware correctly, you cannot download a cheap or free upgrade to your programming software, you have to upgrade the whole damn package, and then
they don't supply the driver installation for the older PG's so you spend days and days trying to get it to work only to end up with the old S--t or
buying a new PG, I think this is the worst consumerism on the face of God's earth.

I am well known on this list as being an ardent Siemens fan, and I still think they make the greatest PLC in the market place but the cost of being in the service game is getting to be too much. Any Allen Bradley reps out there please take note, I am available for convincing!!!!

Regards
Donald Pittendrigh
 
Hi Donald and all friends on list,

Personally I think that a portable case stuffed with standard components is a good solution for automation.. Ok, you have to deal with larger dimensions than a notebook or compact PCs,
but the benefits are far greater.

I am also a Siemens fan and I got both PGs and notebooks. A few years ago I had to take a decision.. buy a new Siemens PG or buy a new notebook ? I thought a PG was not worth its price and some friends of mine experienced troubles running Step7 on their notebooks (I was told that some chipsets were not compatible with some Step7 features)
I know I could find some portable PC cases in the market, but they are too large and I wanted something that I could carry on airplane and fit underseat.
So I made some bricolage... I disassembled a commercial Philips 14.1" LCD display and I gathered all other PC components into a heavy-duty bag (I also cut the edge of a common PC keyboard to fit it into the bag).
This prototype turned out a nice rough thing (somebody started calling me "McGuyver") but I immediately appreciated some nice features like easy hard disks change, two serials port available
for serial protocols analysis, PCI and ISA slots, very quick and cheap upgrade or replacement of easy to find components. Also, ISA or PCI cards are cheaper than PCMCIA ones. From that time I upgraded it three times with minimal expenses,
I'm still working with it and I'm also suspecting I will never look back.

regards
Luca Gallina
 
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Gerard Leemkuil

After reading your mail I have two points for attention.
1) Upgrade your memory to 256MB S7 need large amount of memory.
2) Install Service pack one on your machine.
After this you will see that S7 run very well on windows 2000 professionel

Regard Gerard Leemkuil
 
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Donald Pittendrigh

Dear Gerard

Thanks for the observations:

If you were paying attention you would have noticed I said exactly the same thing, S7 does run on Win2000, the driver for the on board MPI interface for a Pentium MMX version of the PG740 is not available, now if you can send me a copy of that you will have been a clever boy!!!

Regards
Donald Pittendrigh

PS by the way it runs well with or with out Service pack 1, and I have no difficulty running with 128 Mbyte of RAM, however I have ordered 512 for my new machine, and do agree that 256 should be a good guideline for a minimum spec.
 
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