FTV ME "programmed in version" help??

robbo

Lifetime Supporting Member
Join Date
Nov 2005
Location
Australia
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Am doing an audit on some touch screens in a factory.

They are programmed in a mixture of ftv me 5.0 and ftv me 6.1 (that I know of so far)

Is it possible to read from the .apa or .mer files what version of software they were originally programmed with?

I know I could open each project and attempt to open a page and see if I get the compatibility pop up message, butr was hoping there was an easier way?? Since ME can tell the difference, would be good if that info was in a log or text file somewhere in the project files.

RS linx doesnt appear to be able to tell me the difference either.

Thanks!!
 
I looked into this for a bit some time ago and found no solution which has always been pretty frustrating to me. I unzipped a MER and found that there were two files that looked promising: PRODUCT_VERSION_INFORMATION and VERSION_INFORMATION but they were in some unreadable format.

It's still bugging me though, there must be a way...
 
Well there is something that can be done with the VERSION_INFORMATION file but it's quite the procedure. I'm trying to figure out a way to write software to automate the process but here's basically how it works:

Unzip a MER with 7zip.
Open a the VERSION_INFORMATION file with Notepad++
Use it's converter plugin to convert the text from ASCII -> HEX
This will reveal the following:

030720 = V7
03060A = V6.10
030620 = V6.0
0305 = V5.10
030520 = V5.0
030420 = V4

Didn't try < v4 but I'm sure that there's a pattern here...

If I can figure it out, my hope is to make a small executable that you can just point at a MER and have it do the above work for you to report the version. Or maybe there's an easier way, we'll see...
 
Good to know. I asked about this to RA tech. support years ago. They said there wasn't a way to determine this. Thanks!
 
I have a small program that I made that will automate the process that I mentioned above. It seems to work okay with one caveat, you must have 7zip installed as it uses 7z to extract the VERSION_INFORMATION file out of the MER.

I'm adding the ability to do the same with the APA too. I'll share if anyone is interested.
 
I'll try to remember to post it tonight when I get off work.

Dude!! You da man! (y) šŸ»:geek:

Seriously, that's an awesome tool to have. I will be waiting for this one!

Now if only there was an easy way to determine a terminal 's firmware without going to the configuration screen... It's always irked me that the transfer utility is dumb enough to let you transfer a v7.0 mer to a 5.1 term, and the terminal is dumb enough to boot it, but smart enough to know it can't run it! šŸ™ƒ
 
As promised, it's pretty ugly: File Version

As the user interface suggests you can drag the following file types onto the form and have it report it's version back to you:

FactoryTalk View Studio MER and APA (7zip required)
Logix5k / Studio5k ACD
AutoCAD DWG

I had already written some code to figure out logix and autocad so I threw that in there too. If you have any trouble let me know.
 
Last edited:
Dustin,

I tried this out this morning and it worked perfectly on ACD files, but kept saying "No MER Found" whenever dragging a mer file to it. I tried 5.1 and 6.1 files with same result.
 
Dustin,

I tried this out this morning and it worked perfectly on ACD files, but kept saying "No MER Found" whenever dragging a mer file to it. I tried 5.1 and 6.1 files with same result.

Hmmm, you aren't by chance dragging them onto the form from a network drive or a portable drive are you? If so try it from your local drive.
 
I think I found a better way to handle MER's The problem with them is that you have to use an external program to extract a file from the MER. I just made the main thread sleep for an arbitrary amount of time, which was long enough on my system (except if the file was on a network drive) but might not have been long enough for everyone's system. I found a way to wait for the external process to complete before trying to figure out what version it was. I'll test it here in a bit and then post it for you to try.

I also realized that I didn't check for the 32bit version of 7z so I'll make that change too.
 
Last edited:
I think I found a better way to handle MER's The problem with them is that you have to use an external program to extract a file from the MER. I just made the main thread sleep for an arbitrary amount of time, which was long enough on my system (except if the file was on a network drive) but might not have been long enough for everyone's system. I found a way to wait for the external process to complete before trying to figure out what version it was. I'll test it here in a bit and then post it for you to try.

I also realized that I didn't check for the 32bit version of 7z so I'll make that change too.

The mer's were on my C drive.

I'm using the 64 bit 7zip, but do all my Ft Studio work in a 32 bit vm. Should I be running the file checker there?
 
Almost there

I had the same issue. Works great for the *.acd. I tried dragging both the *.mer and or the VERSION_INFORMATION extracted file and didn't have any luck.

I was just questioning the ability to do this last week when I was trying to determine what version we had of a FT ME file in question.
 
The mer's were on my C drive.

I'm using the 64 bit 7zip, but do all my Ft Studio work in a 32 bit vm. Should I be running the file checker there?

I have the exact same setup. It doesn't matter where you run it, all that matters is that you have 7zip to extract the file.

Let me do a little more experimenting. I suspect permissions or something like that. I'll have it log some information. Thanks for giving it a chance, I'll get it worked out. I can't let the MER win...

Strange that it works just fine on my machine. I have a couple of people that can test it out as well before I post it again...
 

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