Factory Talk Activation in XP Machine on Win7 64bit

[DamianInRochester]

Has anyone been able to get the most recent version of factory talk activation to work in an XP machine on Windows 7 64 bit. I have tried with integration features on and off and nothing seems to help. I have resorted over the past two months to just re-installing to reinitiate the grace period over and over again to get things done, but that is really growing old.

I have RSLogix 5000 and Factory Talk View Studio 6 working just fine. It is just this abysmal activation software that Rockwell loves.

[rdrast]

The garbage Rockwell FT Activation Manager 3.30 is supposed to work with Windows 7 64 bit, Home or Pro edition, but NOT Windows 7 64 SP1.

I'm actually getting sick of Rockwell's (and to be fair, other industrial software company's) ridiculous "Activation" schemes, but the FTActivation is about the worst I've seen yet. Kudos to another job well failed.

View Studio (and Server, and Client, and Station) 6 is completely unsupported on any 64 bit OS. This is not Microsoft's fault, as they provide the design tools and specifications for every OS they release LONG before the OS goes gold. It is just Rockwell not keeping up with the times.

See "42682 - Rockwell Automation Software Product Compatibility Matrix" for the complete (supposed) compatibility list.

[JesperMP]

Since he is running the Rockwell software in a 32-bit XP mode VM, should that not be OK ?

[DamianInRochester]

It is sad that the vast majority of my issues with Rockwell Software usually boil down to activation. I remember a few years back when I bought the cadillac version of Logix5000 and Factory Talk SE and could not get it to activate. I called up support and they weren't going to help becuase I didn't have a service contract. I "really" lost my temper. The end result was, the guy told me to hold on for a minute, came back, and then told me to try again. Boom, it just worked. Which means it was something on their end the whole time.

Since then I have heard they don't even ask for your service contract info if it is an activation issue.

I have had really good luck running almost everything in XP Mode. There is ususally some trick involved. So far I haven't found the trick to FTM.

It is pretty clear the 64 bit OS's and Windows 7 are going to be widely accepted. Not just Rockwell, but all these vendors really need get up to speed. Their software should not prevent us from using the latest PC technology. 64 bit OS's have been around forever now. There is no longer an excuse.

[rdrast]

@Jesper oops, my bad.... I saw the XP reference, and forgot it when I saw the Win 7-64!.
I used XP Mode myself early on, but have settled in to VMWare now for everything.

There are still activation issues though.