RSL5k and Studio question

I just bought Logix5k for the first time this past week, and downloaded a couple versions.

I spoke to Rockwell support and they said that for me to work with different versions basically I have to only have the version I want to use installed on the computer.

So I have downloaded v30, but also the v20 installation files, and I guess I will be switching back and fourth depending on what it is I'm working on.

My question is why couldn't you have both versions installed and when you launch it, the license on your HD is "claimed". Just seems like a huge PITA to have to uninstall/Install when switching.

Just curious if anyone knew perhaps why that's the chosen method?

That is how it works. You can have many Logix/Studio 5000 version installed at the same time. It will open automatically the version that is required by the program.

dwoodlock - You most certainly can have as many versions as you want installed... I have to service programs going back a long way, so I have versions 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 of RSLogix5000 installed, and versions 21 & 24 of Studio5000.

They all work quite happily alongside each other, "switching" between versions depending on which application I open. ***

If I've already got RSLogix/Studio5000 open, and I "Open" a new file, it automatically senses the version of the file I'm opening, closes my current version of RSLogix/Studio, and opens the correct version to open the application file.

If an RA Tech Support agent told you that you can only have one version installed then that's probably the worst sort of tech support you could get - just remember you pay for RA support these days - you're certainly not getting value for money from him.....

I've seen some instances of "bad" advice given on here, and you can sort of tolerate the odd occasion that happens, being a "free" forum, and no control over who responds to a post... but to get it from someone whose job is to inform correctly is unbelievable. If he genuinely didn't know the answer, he should have passed it to someone who did, or research it himself....

*** I have found it best, when installing, to do them in ascending version number order. I hear many tales of versions not working correctly if installed out of order.

One note -

From the release notes for v30

"Microsoft .NET 4.6 may cause failure in earlier versions of the Logix Designer application
When you install version 30 of Logix Designer, Microsoft .NET 4.6 is installed automatically. However, .NET 4.6 can cause the following issues:

When previous versions of Logix Designer are installed after version 30, .NET 4.6 may cause installation to fail for these earlier versions of the Logix Designer application.
When installed on 32-bit Windows operating systems, .NET 4.6 causes versions 23 and earlier of the Logix Designer application to fail on startup.
Follow one of these steps to work around the issue:

Do not install version 30 of the Logix Designer application on a 32-bit Windows operating system on which you also run version 23 or earlier of the Logix Designer application.
Contact Rockwell Automation Support for instructions on disabling the Logix Designer Start page on versions 23 or earlier. Disabling the Start page allows the Logix Designer application to start and run."

So, beware of that.

Further to the advice above, I believe you may want to research minor version incompatibility - some resort to VMs for specific versions of Logix5000 to avoid conflicts

Dravik said:

Contact Rockwell Automation Support for instructions on disabling the Logix Designer Start page on versions 23 or earlier. Disabling the Start page allows the Logix Designer application to start and run."

Click to expand...

Not sure if you need to contact RA for instructions on disabling the Start Page. It's in the "Tools->Options" - unless they have a registry hack method that prevents it ever being enabled again....

the_msp said:

Further to the advice above, I believe you may want to research minor version incompatibility - some resort to VMs for specific versions of Logix5000 to avoid conflicts

Click to expand...

Correct, only one minor version can go on a machine.
Which is why I am now up to no less then 8 VM to support all of my customers.

Rockwell is killing us with all the versions!

8 VM's? How? The only version incompatibilities I'm aware of are v20 and 21... and if you use v20.04 it's compatible with both 20.01 and 20.03, so all you have left is v21.

RA's fix for v21 is to upgrade to v23, which is basically v21 without the minor compatibility issues, so if you can't upgrade to v23 you still have a legitimate problem - but I still cant figure out where your other six VM's are coming from!

ASF said:

8 VM's? How? The only version incompatibilities I'm aware of are v20 and 21... and if you use v20.04 it's compatible with both 20.01 and 20.03, so all you have left is v21.

RA's fix for v21 is to upgrade to v23, which is basically v21 without the minor compatibility issues, so if you can't upgrade to v23 you still have a legitimate problem - but I still cant figure out where your other six VM's are coming from!

Click to expand...

Logix 20.01, 20.03 and now 20.04.
FTView 6.1 so I can create 6.1 apa files.
FTView 8.0 again to be able to create apa files. On 32 bit machine.
FTView 8.0 again to be able to create apa files. On 64 bit machine.

And now a 32 bit machine for FTView 8.1.
and I just had to build a machine to support FTView 8.2 on 32 bit machine.

And I am sure before to long I will need 9.0 machines both 32 then 64 bit.

And that doesn't include all the VM's for Wonderware from 4.5 to the latest or servers for Historian and Vantage Point (3 different versions of that).

Oh right, yeah, FTView is a whole different ballgame. But with Studio 5000 the only concern (I've found) is what OS is supported.

Why do you still need VM's for 20.01 and 20.03? The whole point of 20.04 is that it plays nice with both...

ASF said:

Oh right, yeah, FTView is a whole different ballgame. But with Studio 5000 the only concern (I've found) is what OS is supported.

Why do you still need VM's for 20.01 and 20.03? The whole point of 20.04 is that it plays nice with both...

Click to expand...

Two of our customers only have either 20.01 or 20.03 but not both.

Problem I run into is the customers maintenance PC is built by the customers IT department and they get their build working with one version and they are unable to upgrade as the IT department won't support the next version because they already spent to much time getting it to work. So the poor maintenance people have to wait for the next IT build to come out to use a newer version (assuming it will work with that build)

One of our larger customers are stuck at 20.01. Causes a real problem because they are starting to convert SLC to Logix, but the 1747-AENTR will only see one 13 slot rack in version 20.01. If they could go to version 21 or higher then it can see multiple racks. So the last two conversions we have had to use an AENTR in each rack. Real wast of money, but their stuck for now. Also they couldn't get 21 to run on their current IT build. Hopefully the next IT build will support it.

Huh, should have suspected an IT department would be at the heart of it all!

Still, I'm confused...I thought that if you have v20.04, then it can open a project created with v20.01 or v20.03. And likewise, if you save a project using v20.04, it can be opened by both v20.01 and v20.03.

Am I wrong about one of those? Always happy to be wrong, I just hate being wrong and uninformed

No, you are right. But I suspect he created the separate VMs before 20.04 released. Now with 20.04 only one VM would be needed.

Also, you can get around the FT issue (sort of) by creating the .MER and sending that out in the appropriate revision. At the other end they can restore the runtime to get their development copy in that version.

I do have a single 32-bit XP VM with version 6.1. I think with version 7 and beyond the 32-bit issue goes away as they have moved away from the Watson database tools. But I could be wrong. I haven't use any 32-bit O/S since leaving XP.

OG