Step7 v5.5 project backward compatibility to v5.4

Hi all, I would first say this is a great forum, lots of genuine info. Been here many times, this is my first post:

My new client has Step7 V5.4 on their site Engineering workstation, I assume must be on WinXP, & I understand is connectable to a variety of S7-3xx and S7-4xx processors.

My Siemens Win7 Pro VM is running Step7 V5.5
If I develop a project in V5.5 VM, will I be able to import & open it on the V5.4 Wkstn?
There is a post from 2011 with 'the other guys'

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7609930/is-step-7-v5-5-compatible-with-v5-4

indicating if starting with 5.4, you can go to 5.5 and back, but not sure if I start with 5.5 ??
Cheers
Dodgy

Depends on what you used in your project.

Also, backward compatible would be for V5.5 to open a V5.4 project, not the other way around like you want. If anything it would be forward compatible which is a term I'm not familiar with.

This being said, it is possible that the project is possible to open on V5.4. I think it would mostly depend on the CPU you're using and how well it was supported previously.

Probably not - almost all software is not backward compatible.

The file format for Simatic Manager projects is pretty flexible (something I really really wish had continued on into TIA Portal).

When you open the project, it tries to process the data as best it can. Some objects it just says "look, i dunno what that is". Sometimes it says "That one IO device is weird, but I can understand the rest of this". Sometimes it can't quite parse the information, but it gives you the data it can. There is no in built gateway saying this project is version X.

If you create a project in 5.5, or even 5.6, and all the features and HW you use are supported in v5.4, it'll work just fine in v5.4.

However, if you accidentally use a new feature, the guy with v5.4 will have trouble. There is no way to run a check and see "what versions of Step 7 can open my project?", except to try to open it yourself and see if it works.

Thanks very much mk42. Expecting all the H/W & code we are using will be same as previous equipment already running on the 5.4 platform.
I will, as you say, "try to open it yourself and see if it works", allow some contingency time just in case.

If some of the hardware devices are not supported in V5.4 which you have configured in V5.5, you'll see a yellow question mark in 5.4.

With some hardware which is not compatible with 5.4, there's an option to configure the older version of the device, which is sometimes accepted if the new device replaced the old version, but is backwards compatible. But the you can't use the features the newer device would have.