S7 ET200S Windows XP Embedded

Hi Everyone.

Let me just start saying that i'm new to PLC and that i don't know much about them.
The last couple of days I have been trying to install the Station configurator and NCM PC Manager on WINXPE. This seems impossible, has any of you guys done that?. Actually i think its a bit overkill that so much software needs to be installed just to read and set some values on an S7 ET200S, so if there is a smarter way to do this i would sure like to know . The interface card used in my setup is a CP5611. What we are doing here is that, we are just using the ET200S system as an A/D converter, all the magic is done in our Labview application. The Labview application then talks to the OPC and then the OPC controls the modules. This whole setup is qite huge and heavy, so the question is how do we make i smaller and smarter and more space (more than 300MB of software is too much) efficient. Maby we a different hardware to start with, its just that the Siemens S7 ET200S system is so easy to build and work with.

Hej Troels.

As far as I know, Win XPE should work the same as a normal Win XP apart from that it doesnt write to disk so often.
What kind of problems do you run into when you try to install Simatic Net ?
NCM is not required on the target PC, but Station Configurator is.

Winxpe

HI Jesper,

The installer says: It cannot install because i needs Windows XP SP1. The version we are using is windows xp embedded sp2 and the siemens software says that its compatible
with Windows XP SP2. I have tried to install the packages manually, but this was not possible, I got an error saying: "Not allowed".
Is it correctly understood that the only packages needed is the OPC server and Station configurator.

As for windows xp embedded, the reason why we use this, is because it uses a technique (EWF) to write any changes to RAM instead of the disk, in our case flash. It is necessary to use EWF else the flash would quickly wear out.

Exactly what version is your Simatic Net software ?
What is the type no on the package ?

You can try to run the setup on the disk under \sw\simnetpc\disk1\.

Simatic NET Version

Hi Jesper,

Here are the version numbers:

Text written on jewel case.
SIMATIC NET
Networking for industry

PC / Software
Edition 2005

order number of cdrom
6G1704-0AA07-3AA0

The number just below
S79220-A7695-F000-01

Text written on package.
PB SOFTNET-DP
Edition 2005
6GK1704-5DW63-3AA0

That was all the numbers I could find.

I just tried to run the /sw/simnetpc/disk1/simatic net pc software.msi. It gives an error saying:
SIMATIC NET PC/ Software Edition 2005 V6.3
Not allowed!

6GK1704-5DW63-3AA0 = v6.3 which I have used many times with XP SP2.
Call Siemens support about this particular problem.

Anyway, are you sure that you need a "DP" connection ? This means that you exchange the data via i/o data areas which are very inflexible.
Typically you would use Softnet S7, not Softnet DP.
edit: Ooops. I forgot that the comms partner is an ET200S and not a PLC. Then Softnet DP is correct.

Hi Jesper,

I just spoke with siemens support. They offer an update cd for version 6.3 to 6.3.0.1 the only problem is that the software needs to be installed first .

Siemens ID 21661041

Siemens support said, that they would try to see if there was something that they could do.

BTW, their supporter also mentioned that they sell WinXPE machines bundled with Simatic NET software. So it should indeed be possible? only question is if its aginst siemens marketing policy.