Virtual PC for PLC programming software

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I am doing an experiment. I have installed Virtual PC on my laptop and I have made a virtual pc on my laptop into which I will install my PLC programming software. The purpose is to keep my laptop free from the RLinxs and Siemen bloat that installs services, uses memory and otherwise degrades the performance of my PC when I am not programming PLCs.

Has anyone done this? The question that comes to mind is whether the copy protection will allow this.

Anyway I will try and let you guys know how it turns out.

Our software team team makes virtual pc and uses them to install and test software. If the software is bad we don't uninstall the software, we trash the whole virtual machine so there is nothing left of the effects of the bad software.
Note, a virtual pc is just two files in my My Documents directory so these are easy to back up and restore.
 
I've had a piece of equipment installed from Avtron like this.
They partition the hard drive and make a "ghost" drive that runs NT, from XP they boot the NT that runs the RSView, RS500, RS5000, some fancy Access Database look up functions.
This all worked very nicely because they had a very specific configuration for the NT portion of the machine, and it ran just like an NT machine.
The Activation Software had no problems going to the ghost drive.
 
Hi Peter,
I have used a virtual machine (VMware) in the past for older Dos/WIN98 based software on a XP Pro Laptop without any issues. As for software licence, you could always move it around and authorise each virtual machine as you use it.

I've also dual booted before, to seperate various PLC manufacturer software/versions for compatability.

As you say if you screw something up, the beauty of this setup is you can just delete it or restore using Imaging (Drive Image or Ghost) in sensible time periods.

Regards
STL
 
STL??? said:
Hi Peter,
I have used a virtual machine (VMware)
Yes, my IT guy said the VMware is much better. We shall see. If Virtual PC doesn't work I will try VMware.

Not doing much now except for downloading patches to the patches on WIN XP. What a waste of time. I think I should back up the virtual pc before I even install software on it. I would have to repeat this step again.
 
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Hi Peter,
Not doing much now except for downloading patches to the patches on WIN XP. What a waste of time. I think I should back up the virtual pc before I even install software on it. I would have to repeat this step again.
This is why i use drive Image, I can image my C drive quickly and compress it by 50%, Then in times of trouble i can restore in 10 -15 min's,Instead of at least 1 day of updates,software installs and most importantly Licence loss.

Regards
STL
 
I've never messed with Virtual PC, but I'll throw in another vote for Vmware. I run an XP client virtual machine from my linux box at home, but have not had a chance to fully test it with PLC software since I have no PLCs at home to test it on. :confused:

Virtual machine technology is one of those funny computer concepts that goes in popularity cycles.. I know it had a flash in the 'ol days on mainframes, but it seems to be in an upswing over the last 5 years or so. Pretty darn handy if you ask me. Especially for testing.
 
I use Virtual PC all the time. I'm sure if I asked Siemens and Microsoft, I would technically be violating the copyright, but actually their software is still installed and used only on one PC.

I've found fairly limited practical use of it though. I have been able to go online with the PLC via Ethernet and a serial PC adapter using a virtual com port, but it's not possible using the Siemens 5511 card. I think the most useful thing I've done so far was to emulate a second workstation and run an HMI on it that connected to the PLC. I then ran the virtual PC on a second monitor in a dual-monitor setup (check out "UltraMon"). I'm sure I'll come up with other uses over time.
 
I din't use it myself but I hear good comments so I would like to give it a try myself.... I'm curious to read more about experience with automation products, particularily Siemens (thanks S7...). Siemens software really makes mess out of carefully configured PC.

Drive image and virtual machines work differently and results they (can) produce don't overlap much.

For example:
If you make backup of a drive, it's only good if you don't work with that PC on something else so no new files are created (or emails received or sent etc.).
If you dump the image back, those changes are lost. This is why drive image is good for restoring machine from serious crash/infestation etc.,
but it's not good for testing - unless test is either short test or it's done on a dedicated machine. In other words this is not handy if testing phase lasts days, weeks or longer and if this is machine that serves other purposes than testing one product (personal computer for example).
 
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For example:
If you make backup of a drive, it's only good if you don't work with that PC on something else so no new files are created (or emails received or sent etc.).
If you dump the image back, those changes are lost. This is why drive image is good for restoring machine from serious crash/infestation etc.,
but it's not good for testing - unless test is either short test or it's done on a dedicated machine. In other words this is not handy if testing phase lasts days, weeks or longer and if this is machine that serves other purposes than testing one product (personal computer for example).

Good Point, However in my case my laptop drive is partitioned and all project data is saved in revisions, seperate to the Operating system partition.

Regards
 
For example:
If you make backup of a drive, it's only good if you don't work with that PC on something else so no new files are created (or emails received or sent etc.).
If you dump the image back, those changes are lost. This is why drive image is good for restoring machine from serious crash/infestation etc.,
but it's not good for testing - unless test is either short test or it's done on a dedicated machine. In other words this is not handy if testing phase lasts days, weeks or longer and if this is machine that serves other purposes than testing one product (personal computer for example).

I am not sure about some software but Norton Ghost or Save and Restore can save on the fly, using scheduled backups, and multiple saves, just depends on what you want to do.

A simple example when installing new software would be make an image prior to it then do your install, if there is a problem then you can return to the exact point you were at prior to that install.

The easiest method, for me, is use an equal sized hard drive and have it saved on that. For a laptop an external drive etc will work.

Technically it is the same as using RAID on a server, it just depends on how necessary it is to maintain your computer at a certain point.
 
I don't know if I'd want to depend on a Virtual PC for going on-line to a PLC. For HMI development I don't mind it though. I like keeping RSViewSE sandboxed (man, what a resource & service pig) and Wonderware gets cranky if you develop an app at a different resolution than your target PC will run it at. Not many targets will run at my laptop's 1900x1200 resolution!

The new Rockwell activations may make this difficult if not impossible for their stuff though. Haven't tried yet.
 
optimus2861 said:
I don't know if I'd want to depend on a Virtual PC for going on-line to a PLC. For HMI development I don't mind it though. I like keeping RSViewSE sandboxed (man, what a resource & service pig) and Wonderware gets cranky if you develop an app at a different resolution than your target PC will run it at. Not many targets will run at my laptop's 1900x1200 resolution!

The new Rockwell activations may make this difficult if not impossible for their stuff though. Haven't tried yet.

Tip: I used to develop In Touch by using a seperate monitor set to the final resolution plugged into the laptop video port. This way I could setup dual displays and have cut & paste scripts etc. open on the laptop screen while the InTouch app was on the other. I have heard that there is an .ini setting to allow working in a window the size of the final resolution but I heard this after leaving the company that used InTouch.
 
Results :( Use VMware and not Virtual PC for Step7 users.

Virtual PC doesn't handle the USB to MPI converter that I use for Step7 programming. The Virtual PC seems to be OK for programming over the ethernet or serial port IF you have one so Rockwell customers can get by with either VMWare or Virtual PC.
Also, RS500, RS5000 and Step7 all installed and ran without problems except for the USB.

I have now wasted much time with this Microsh!t and I will buy VMWare now. Oh, well.

If you need to use USB use VMWare.
 

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