Siemens S7-1500 starter kit

I have purchased an S7-1500 starter kit to begin learning programming on a Siemens system. I need to load the TIA portal software on my laptop. This software has a 1 year license. I have no experience with Siemens products. I have heard and read issues with installing the software, that it can mess up other software on your computer. The laptop I am going to use contains RSLogix 5000, Yaskawa, and various Automation Direct packages on it. I don't want to mess any of these up. I have never used any virtual machine software on a computer before. All my software for now is installed on the laptop without the use of a vm. In reading other information, it is said that the vm approach is the best way to have multiple plc software on your computer. I am looking for any recommendations. Thanks

Morning Jim

OS is Wind 7 pro on a Dell Inspiron, and a Lenovo Lap top

I loaded TIA Portal V13 two weeks ago

I have RSLogix - RSEmulate - Factory talk -linx, ABB robotics, EasySoft Pro 6, Idec, National Instruments - LabView - NI Max, And Vijeo Designer loaded , And TIA has had no effect on any of the other programs.

Good Luck

Hey Jim,

Never really had any issues with TIA messing up other software, but it is a beast none the less.

It is the program I mostly use now, I tried installing it on a virtual machine and ran into performance issues. It works, but it works much better on my root machine. If this is for training purposes, I would definitely try to install it on a VM (allocate plenty of working memory), you can always install it on your root machine if it doesn't work well.

boneless said:

Hey Jim,

Never really had any issues with TIA messing up other software, but it is a beast none the less.

It is the program I mostly use now, I tried installing it on a virtual machine and ran into performance issues. It works, but it works much better on my root machine. If this is for training purposes, I would definitely try to install it on a VM (allocate plenty of working memory), you can always install it on your root machine if it doesn't work well.

Click to expand...

I agree with everything boneless just said. I've seen lots of firewall type issues, but I haven't ever had Portal cause issues with other vendor's software. I HAVE seen Portal cause issues with other Siemens software, but a repair fixed everything.

I personally use it in a VM for versioning reasons, to match my different customer projects. I haven't had too much trouble, but I also have a beefy machine. 2TB SSD, 16GB of RAM, quad core, etc.

I have also run Siemens and AB software on the same machine with no issues.

The only issue I remember was with serial comms back in the day. RS Linx would have it's drivers setup for auto start and grab the serial port as soon as the computer was booted. This would block the serial port frow the Siemens software. After switching the driver to manual start everything was all good.

This is the most common situation I remember hearing about when I hear about software not playing well together.

As mk42 stated TIA might have issues with corporate firewalls and/or anti-virus software. You would notice this when trying to discover 'online access' or scanning for a device to set it's IP address.