Siemens Tia portal Licensing ?

[Zimmer]

I never had much dealings with Siemens but last March, for a small project, I purchased a Siemens S7-1200 Starter kit, from an official Siemens dealer, it comes in a nice box, with a S7-1200 cpu, a few bit's n pieces and a floating licence of Tia Portal Step 7 Basic Version 17, which is the latest version on a usb stick. Worked a treat, all happy.

Roll on yesterday (4 months later), when I needed another cpu and a hmi and I decided, for the sake of the extra dosh, I would buy another starter kit, from the same supplier. I would then have another floating licence to put it on my second laptop and save me from swapping back and over.
However when I removed the usb stick, from my new package, I saw this time, it was Tia Portal Step 7 Basic Version 16, which is the previous version.

I contacted Siemens and they said that despite me purchasing it that very day, the only way I could get the latest version was by purchasing an upgrade licence.

I assumed wrongly, that a brand new "package" would include the latest software version, or the facility to update it prior to first usage.

Not the end of the world, but curious, is this "normal" with Siemens ?

 

[JRW]

You buy direct or from a distributor?
Also, your only supposed to be able to purchase 1 starter kit
Just saying

 

[Zimmer]

You buy direct or from a distributor?
Also, your only supposed to be able to purchase 1 starter kit
Just saying

Bought here:

https://ie.rs-online.com/web/c/?searchTerm=siemens+s7+starter+kit

Where does it say, you can only buy one ?

And besides wouldn't change the story, let's say I only bought yesterdays one, I would still have the old version.

 

[JRW]

I read it somewhere although I can’t seem to locate it

Your ordering through mail order. They don’t care how many you purchase apparently. Good for you I guess

An oem can rack up a deal by purchasing 20 starter kits with that company

That online company sent you what they had apparently

 

[RVaughan]

Have you asked the seller to exchange the license?

 

[Puddle]

I've found RS to be great for sending you exactly what you asked for, but it's not always what you wanted. I've been tripped up a few times with receiving the wrong part because the datasheet said what I wanted, but the part number was one digit off.
They're normally pretty good at accepting returns without fuss though, so maybe worth a shot.

 

[parky]

As I stated in another post, we had S7 V5.3 for some old S7-400's, when our PC's were upgraded using Win7, V5.3 would not run, contacted the main Siemens distributor in UK & they recommended TIA (in 2012 this was V11),
However, we then found out that it would load an S7 V5.3 project & monitor but could not make changes in the PLC, it turned out our hardware was too old circa 2003, TIA only supported later firmware versions.
We tried to return TIA but as it had been open they would not take it back so had to buy S7 V5.5 which was what should have been recommended for the older hardware. So we paid a lot of money for software we have never used & probably too old version for the later hardware. By the way this version will not run on Win11 which I have now, I can run Mitsubishi, omron, RW etc. without problems.

 

[Zimmer]

No I have no issue with the supplier, and indeed I won't lose much sleep over the licence.

It's an active product,
https://mall.industry.siemens.com/mall/en/ie/Catalog/Product/6AV6651-7DA02-3AA4

and the supplier didn't find it down the back of the couch, I had to wait until they got it into stock.

It's just I find it strange, that Siemens release a V17 version of their S7-1200 Basic software, months ago, and include it with some of their starter kits, while leaving the older version with other starter kits.

This is not a compilation box supplied by a distributor, it's an official sealed current Siemens package. I would have thought, that as the suppied software, had been superceeded months before you bought it, then it would be fair to exchange the unused licence with proof of purchase for the current version.

This is akin, to buying a laptop from Microsoft today and finding out it's got Windows 10 installed, and they won't let you have Windows 11 unless you send them more money.

 

[bb76]

Some of the kits also only give you a 365 day trial license so you would need to upgrade after a year anyway. I think it may be for professional versions of the software.

 

[Zimmer]

Some of the kits also only give you a 365 day trial license so you would need to upgrade after a year anyway. I think it may be for professional versions of the software.

Yes, but this isn't one of them, it's a lifetime licence.