Siemens Tia Portal Latest Version

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Marine Farinha

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Aug 3, 2024, 1:40:39 PM8/3/24

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The company I work for sells control systems for work boats in the oil & gas industry. We began using TIA Portal at Version 10.5 and have used every version to date. A major problem for us is that TIA Portal will not upload from a cpu that was downloaded to with a previous version of TIA Portal. There are occasions where our technicians have to go to a vessel to work on a system that they do not have the software for. They must upload from the cpu. For this reason, they need TIA Versions 12.1, 13.1, 14.1, and now 15.1 installed on their computers. It then becomes a guessing game as to which version of software is running on the cpu but they get it.

As time passes, Windows software changes and TIA Versions lose their compatibility. I am installing TIA versions 14.1 and 15.1 on a new Windows 10 service laptop. I cannot install V12.1 because it is not Windows 10 compatible. TIA Version 13.1 SP2 is Windows 10 compatible but I only have our old Version 13.0 installer. Reading through these forums, installing Version 13 prior to SP2 causes errors during the installation and may not run or finish the install. Is there a TIA Advanced Ver. 13.1 SP2 installer available for download or can I install V13.0 in the Windows 10 environment and run the updater to update it to V13.1 SP2?

We update software versions as we service systems but every time Siemens comes out with a new version of TIA, we have the same problem. Every other plc manufacturer's software is backwards compatible with their hardware except Siemens. MicroWin, which is no longer supported, works on Windows 10 and will still work with any 200 series plc. Will Siemens ever get their head out of their ass and make TIA fully backwards compatible? They are making it impossible to support our products and service our customers. If this continues, we may be forced to switch plc lines to a different manufacturer.

However, have you considered VirtualBox or VMware or other virtualization tech that allows you and your techs to install a VM for each version of portal prior to V15.1 (the first portal version to officially support Win10 Build 1803)?

We update software versions as we service systems but every time Siemens comes out with a new version of TIA, we have the same problem. Every other plc manufacturer's software is backwards compatible with their hardware except Siemens. MicroWin, which is no longer supported, works on Windows 10 and will still work with any 200 series plc. Will Siemens ever get their head out of their ass and make TIA fully backwards compatible? They are making it impossible to support our products and service our customers. If this continues, we may be forced to switch plc lines to a different manufacturer.

Thanks for your response. TIA is very resource heavy, especially when online with a cpu. Virtual Machine also consumes a lot of resources. We use high end gaming laptops for our service laptops so we do have high speed RAM, cpu clock speed, SSD speed, and more than adequate NVidia video cards. My concern is slowing down a technician while a customer that is being charged by the hour is looking over his shoulder. While online, TIA is already slow to respond and I'm concerned running in a VM will only make that worse. I want to put off using a VM until I have no other choice. I keep crossing my fingers and hoping that Siemens will fix this issue. Siemens never had this compatibility issue until TIA V13. Step 7, WinCC Flex, and MicroWin all worked with older hardware. Hopefully one day the PLC Gods will look down upon us and give Siemens the solution to this issue.

If you as the developers have not by now configured one of the default HMI screens to show the portal version used to build the system, you need to.. Then your field service dispatcher can ask the customer to remind you what version is installed. Then your field service people can come on-site with the correct portal version already running.

Thanks again for the response. I agree with you about version control. I have requested it for years and while everyone agrees we need it. I just can't get the company to foot the bill for it. I'm trying to get VersionDog in the budget but it hasn't happened yet.

I was not aware that I could display the software version on the HMI. Is this only available on Siemens HMI or can I write it to a tag to display on any manufacturer's HMI? I will research to see how it is done. Thanks for the heads up.

The "Classic" S7 was decent software but Siemens have really dropped the ball with TIA Portal. I realise why they've done it and that they have to make money so releasing a new product and charging everyone again for licenses seems like a good idea.

Plus, with the advent of Portal we are going to need to learn a new system anyway so why not use the opportunity to move away from Siemens and all the frustration that comes with them (even the latest Service Pack - 15.1 at the time of writing - isn't compatible with Windows 10?!?!).

I think they will see a significant migration away from the Siemens platform as large companies simply can't afford the loss in production / servicing / reputation that comes with trying to fight against buggy resource hungry software that didn't even become fit for purpose until version 14.

From a System Integrator point of view, it is not enough to have the version displayed on HMI or document the projects, even though both of them are valuable suggestions. We regularly get called on service visits with problematic Siemens Hardware installed, not made or commissioned by us. Below is what actually happened.

The client is poultry and fish feed manufacturer, and their mill was not running, there were no errors on HMI (TP1200 comfort) or SF LED on. CPU was S7-1510SP and was in run mode. Tried to go online via V15.1, which told me that program downloaded via V13 SP1. Thankfully I had V13 SP1 VM on my laptop, when tried to go online via V13 SP1, it didn't let me upload program because the specific CPU part-number was not in existing catalog. Hence HSP update required. Downloaded the required HSP package and tried to install it, which then told me I had to update my TIA Portal V13 SP1 to update 8 to install this HSP. Back to downloading 2.5GB of update 8, installing on lousy VM, restart PC, and then it finally lets me go online. Imagine having to do all that when the mill is shutdown, and every manager in factory is waiting for your feedback, whereas you are actually looking at the download bar for required update for 4-hours.

The uploading, I find, works fine on versions 13 and forward. There is no option to upload at all on version 11, and though it exists on version 12, it is so iffy as to be pretty unusable. But for version 13 and forward, where I have basically the correct version but I am just finding a few orange blobs on attempting to go online, I usually can create an exactly correct copy by merging the upload with the copy I have. But whenever I am asked to remote connect to a site and it turns out to be version 11 or 12, my heart sinks. It usually involves a great deal of struggle, and often, a very unsatisfactory result.