Missing PG/PC interfaces on Windows 10

Hey everyone,

Are you aware of any existing bug with Windows 10 and the application to set the PG/PC interface? It happened to me twice already (in two different windows 10 machines) that the Ethernet interfaces are missing. I tried manually adding them, but they are not listed at all.

In both cases I tried rebuilding the list:

- Deleting the data folder in C:\ProgramData\Siemens\Automation\Simatic OAM\data

- Rebuilding the interface list by running s7epaImp64x.exe (from C:\Program Files\Common Files\Siemens\Automation\Simatic OAM\bin)

But the Ethernet interfaces never become available. These machines only have the WinCC Flex runtime installed, no extra Siemens software.

In both situations I managed to make it work by copying the data folder from another machine (in Windows 7) and selecting the Ethernet interaces that were copied over from the other computer. They're not exactly the same and are shown with a yellow warning sign, but they work. Seems less than ideal, though ;)

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Rodrigo

Hello,

which version of WinCCflex RT do you use?

which version of Windows 10 you use, which build/Branch?

Regards

Christoph

Hi!

WinCC Flex is 2008 SP5 (last version, I believe).

Windows 10 is version 1709, build 16299.967.

ANSWER:
In PCS7version V4.x and higher there is the menu item"Set PG/PC interface"under"Tools"in the SIMATIC Manager.
You have opened the SIMATIC Manager and the menu item "Set PG/PC interface" is missing under "Tools". One possible cause is that you have deinstalled the SIMATIC NET software. During deinstallation an entry in the Registry is deleted. In order to get the menu item to appear again, you must insert the code again. Proceed as follows to do this:

1. Start menu > Run, enter "regedit".
2. Find the code:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\S7EPATSX.EXE
3. The value "Standard" must be set on "C:\Windows\System32\s7epatsx.exe"
4. The value PATH must be on "C:\Siemens\Step7\S7bin;C:\Siemens\Common".
5. Delete the *.DAT files in the directory <DRIVE>:\Siemens\Step7\S7Bin
6. Restart the SIMATIC Manager.
7. The entry "Set PG/PC interface" is now available.

IMPORTANT
In general, no warranty can be given for direct changes in the registry database, because this is entirely the responsibility of the user. In any case it is recommended to make a backup of the registry before proceeding as described below. Furthermore, these settings are computer-specific. This means that when copying the project to another computer, the settings have to be made again.

In my case the missing PG/PC interface settings seem to have been caused by installing Siemens ABT.

If you have installed ABT, the PG/PC interface can be rebuilt using a tool in the ABT installer -

This, or a similar approach might be worth investigation if you anyone encounters the problem following an ABT installation 

Hi,

I had this problem with TIA portal v16 running on windows 10 on a virtual machine (VMware).

I managed to solve it by doing the following:

- Host PC, set IPv4 adress to an IP in the scope of the device you want to connect to. In my case a PLC. Disable IPv6 protocol.

- Host PC, disable all other network adaptors other than ethernet (not sure this is neccesary)

- Host PC, download PRONETA (Trial version PRONETA Professional V1.1. - ID: 109781284 - Industry Support Siemens)

- VMware, Set the VM network setting to bridged + replicate physical network.

- VMware, make sure the VM can access PRONETA, I made a shared folder from my host PC mapped to a network drive in the VM.

- VMware, start the VM

- VM, If not already installed then install Siemens TIA portal and transfer licenses.

- VM, go to change adaptor settings -> right click the ethernet adaptor -> select properties:
* set the IPv4 address of the VM adaptor to an IP in the same scope as the device you want to connect to, but not the same IP address as the host PC.
*disable IPv6 protocol.
* make sure that the Siemens protocols "Profinet IO protocol (DCP/LLDP)" + "SIMATIC Industrial Ethernet (ISO)" + "PROFINET IO RT-Protocol v2.3" are installed. If not you can press "Install" and install them from the list.

- VM, now I had the problem of the empty PG/PC Interface list in the "Set PG/PC Interface" app in control panel and could not connect to my PLC.

- VM, make sure you can ping the device you want to connect to.

- VM, to fix the empty PG/PC list I ran PRONETA as administrator in the VM -> IO Test -> PRONETA scans the network and finds your device -> click on it -> click in the "IO Test" tab in the top of the screen.
When I did this a popup came up telling me that PC/PG interfaces was not installed on the machine and if I want to install it -> install PG/PC interface
see *1

- VM, after the installation restart the VM and when booting up again the PG/PC interfaces are available in the "Set PG/PC Interface" app in control panel.

*1, It might work by just running PRONETA folder/Misc/PC-IDENTIFYER/PC_IDENTIFYER.exe

Voila :)