What are people really using? Win 7 32 bit, 64 bit, Win XP

I've been hanging onto my Win XP 32 bit machine for way too long, and am at the point of needing to upgrade. I have some legacy Rockwell stuff that likes XP and isn't supported completely with any flavor of Win 7. So I guess I'm looking at entering the world of virtualization software. And doing that, I'm thinking of jumping into a 64 bit OS for a bunch of reasons, more memory addressing being one of the biggies.

But I'm curious - what are people really using for their "daily driver" notebook computers with the Rockwell stuff.
> Is the virtualization software a rock solid answer?
> And who's using what for operating systems?

Any quick feedback is much appreciated.

I am running Windows 7 pro 32 bit and no virtual

I have more then the average person loaded and it runs great, just get a lot of ram

VMware Workstation VMs on a Win7Pro-64 bit Host.
So far, yes it is.
WinXP Pro 32-bit SP2 and SP3 as Guest OSs.
Do not attempt to run VMs on a 32-bit Host OS...You will be really sorry...It doesn't matter how much RAM is available, you will not be able to address more than 2.8 GB...

Win 7 Pro 64bit, all XP stuff in a virtual PC with a 32bit os.
The hardware has 8gb ram, dual monitors, and I give 1mb to the virtual machine so I can run Autcad for example, on the host and Factory Talk on the virtual machine.

I finally killed the thing(imaginary machine) the other day for the first time...got it stuck in an infinite reboot loop after trying to find a matching ActiveX DLL for a Microsoft Toolbox used by a vendor with FctSe to fix Rockwell's numeric entry keypad that has been broken for the better part of two decades.

It took 30 minutes to copy the 40gb vhd and setup files back to my machine since I am using freeware tools to backup and restore, but then it was just perfect again with no install hassles.

Definitely, if you must use Factory Talk Studio, do it at version 6.1 and in a fantasy machine. Just shove in that version and the latest patches and then hold it still.

It hurts a lot more if you try to take it in at other versions repeatedly on your real hardware. You would think, that eventually doing it over and over and working your way up slowly would be more pleasant, but I must just not be built for that sort of thing...

I hear there is a version 7.0, but I really have no desire to go any deeper than 6.10

I'm running Win7 Enterprise 64bit, every bit of Rockwell software without any VM at all. No problems.

Maybe I'm just lucky....

Win7 64 for all Logix family programming software and FTView.

Also running WinXP32 on a virtual machine for RSView32, PLCWorkshop for Modicon, and CX-One.

I also use DOSBOX for some really old software (PCIS) but haven't had to use it yet since switching to Win7, but the time will probably come within the year.

Crimson3 runs fine on my Win7 machine but I can only get the emulator to work on the XP virtual machine, so I mostly use it there.

I'm using Oracle Virtualbox. I haven't had any problems. One person here is using VMware and he has had problems but I'm about 99.9% sure that is because he doesn't understand what a virtual machine is. Rockwell recommends VMware. I used virtualbox at first mainly as an experiment and because I have it at home, but since its working great I'll keep using it until it doesn't work great.

Thanks everyone for your responses. It makes me more comfortable pulling the trigger on a Win 7 64 bit machine with VMware or similar...Wish me luck!

I am just about finished with solving the same problem. My XP machines are still surviving, but if they die I'm in BIG trouble.
I bought two Win7 pro 64 bit PCs in January and have built them up with XP mode and Vmware. I found that most (but not all) of the software can be forced to run in a 64 bit PC in compatibility mode. There are a few device drivers that won't work in 64 bit and for those you have to install them in virtual XP.
I was told that the same thing can be done in Win8, but I'm not willing to experiment.
Here is a fairly useful description for installing XP mode in Vmware: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/1091...s-7-machines-without-hardware-virtualization/

Win 7 Pro 64bit with 8GB ram.

All PLC software run on separately virtual no mix of manufacturer software.

I run everything in VM's just for management and isolation as well as legacy support.

VirtualBox is a good solution but VM Ware is better if you can buy it. It has better performance and is more accepted / supported by automation vendors. VM Ware is a Rockwell partner for example.

I would not spend a lot of time on XP Mode IMHO. Afew people on the forum have filled their needs with it and got it to work but I think it's more time than it's worth again just my 2 cents YMMV.

Lately I have been using my laptops as a type 1 hypervisor using moka5 where I used to use them as a type 2 hypervisor with VM Ware. I get much better performance with moka5 bare metal. I use moka5 bare metal in my production enviroments also. It's a miracle when you run pc and server based HMI systems or any other pc based system for production.

I am rolling out moka5 corporation wide as Our primary IT VDI solution.

Just recently gone from XP to Win 8 Pro with 8Gb ram 64 bit SSD drive using VM

So far no problems and real happy with the speed gain

Win 7 64... Siemens Step7 stuff native, microwin and Tia Portal V10.5 running on XP Mode... need a lot of ram (>4GB) for comfort.

Windows 7, i5 2.5ghz x64 8gb RAM

VMWare v9.0 with a virtual machine for every different manufacturer of software. This allows me to load the vm with little resources allocated to it, typically 1gb RAM (sometimes this needs to be increased on the Siemens VM when using the WinCC runtime simulator). But that's the beauty of VM, add and remove resources at your leisure!!

Virtualizing your machine has several advantages.

- Backing up is a piece of cake, most of my VMs are around 30gb so it doesn't take long at all.
- If you have a PC failure (which happened to me the other day) then getting back up and running is a matter of moving the vm to your new PC and with your backup away you go.
- Host system remains light on installed programs and starts quicker.
- Ability to run the VM direct from an external USB drive. Means you don't have to take up a large quantity of HDD on the host machine storing the VM. And if you run it from a USB external drive, there's no noticeable performance loss. I did try it from a NAS drive once. Not recommended.
- Add shared folders and use it in conjunction with the host machine


BUT..it's not all plain sailing

If you get a PC without a serial port, then you're left with little option than to use a USB>Serial adapter. Great. Until..

Some programs cannot manage the comms like this. I've encountered it using the Siemens teleservice software, ABB drive software and a couple others that I can't remember. Communication faults regardless of settings, whilst flicking over to S7 sees the comms works fine with a serial MPI/DP adpater.
In the end, I've been reduced to installing XP as a boot option alongside Win 7 and installing any problematic programs there to achieve comms. Still with the USB>serial adapter but no VM. Then it works.

So all in all, VM is a great option and with the need for serial comms ever diminishing, the above problem will die a death over the coming years. Ethernet is the emerging victor in standard comms so you'll never have a problem with that and VM.

We run a very similar setup to Ramdomfire. to be honest we used to have a laptop for every manufacturer, but as the company's grown its just not feasible plus i regularly used to have at least 2 laptops sat in the boot of the car. Now we have a virtual machine for Rockwell, one for Siemens and everything else. We've just taken delivery of a new Rockwell supported package which I've yet to look at but everything currently runs in A VMWare XP box on a windows 7 64 bit intel i3 laptops with 8gb of ram usually assigning at least 2 GB to each box unless we are looking at running more than one at a time such as Siemens and Intouch etc.

The only issues I've had with comms so far is that we used to have modems for dialing into some sites but with VMWare the only option that appeared to work was to use a USB modem, but they only seem to work sporadically. Now we tend to use VNC type applications over the net its now no longer a problem.

Cheers,

Lee