Siemens and Allen Bradley Compatibility

Hello,

I was told in the past that Siemens and Allen Bradley could not be loaded on the same computer. I was wondering if this has changed. I would like to have both programming software on the same computer.

I've been doing that for about 10 years.

Blanket statements are a bit hard to use. What specific products do you want to load together?

Keith

I RSLogix Series and Siemens S7. Would this give me any communication errors while running one or the other? Do these softwares conflict?

It's not specifically Logix that will get you. It is RSLinx. If you have a serial driver installed RSLinx will take control of the serial port and not let go. So if you try to use the serial MPI adapter with Step7 you will get a comm error. You would need to disable the RSLinx serial driver before using Step7.

That is the only conflict I know of at this time. Other people may have found others. I know I have used both Ethernet drivers without a problem.

Keith

Thanks for your help.

Both Siemens and A-B seem to think they are the only PLC suppliers you will ever have to deal with. With both you have to make sure they don't load their drivers on start up, and you have to make sure that the comm drivers aren't running. I have both programs running on this PC, and with these cautions it works fine.

Note to manufacturers: Don't be so arrogant. Only load your drivers and comm software when we start your programming software and tell you to connect. Sometimes when providing support I switch between several programming packages from several manufacturers in the course of the day. Why should you make it difficult for me to do so?

I have a lot of problem with S7 and other software installed on my PC.
I can not tell if the problem came from AB or other PLC program.
I running S7 on virtual OS.
It work fine.It is not running fast as it run directly.
I copy the virtual machine to external HD.so I can run it on any other computer without to pass hours of installation time of S7 and WinCC.
S7 send brunches every ware in Windows registry.You can never know how it affect on other software.
I have 4GB of ram so 2 GB go for the virtual machine.
If you dont have enough memory dont try it.
I considering to change for Win 7 64 bit so I can put 8 GB and run the virtual with 4GB.It should be faster.

Your best bet is to install your control software in virtual machines. This allows you to have a configured environment for each software.

Linx is a pain, set the configured driver to stop on load of linx, then only manually start the one you want when you need it