Hello-  I am looking for some help with conversion of our Siemens system (Windows 2000) from physical to virtual machine.  I know that most of you did this 10-12 years ago, and I am rather late in the game here... I am dealing with a 20-year-old PC that has somehow managed to survive just fine all this time (and is currently still working!)

Trying to get it replaced before it eventually gives out!  I am very experienced in IT, but have little to no experience with the Siemens hardware.

I have already successfully cloned the machine, and have it booting up in Virtual Box (a little tricky!) and everything looks good on the software side of things. The software reports (in German) that it cannot establish a connection, of course, because we need the Simatic Net communications.

The card in the ancient PC is a 6GK1561-1AA00.  Besides the fact that I need to keep the old machine intact as a backup until it actually dies, the new PC is fanless mini, and has no slots to try the card out. 

I am thinking we just need to get a USB Simatic Net module, such as the 6GK 1571-0BA00-0AA0, and that after that we should be pretty much golden.  Wondering if there is anything special in the software needed to recognize it's coming from USB instead of a card and also if there are any compatibility issues with WIndows 2000 and this (or other model) USB solutions.

If anyone has any other tips or pitfalls to look out for I'd really appreciate it.  I feel like it should all work once we get the Simatic Net communications going and I have ensured the other serial ports are properly mapped to the physical ports on the new machine, but if one of y'all with experience in this can clue me in, that would be awesome  This is a critical system on a 50m boat and I know once we get this working with a VM, we don't have to worry about PC hardware failing any more!

Any clues or tips would be most appreciated.

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Split from Use of Virtual Machines for Running programs of different versions.

For the CP5611 in Win 10/11, my only success was pure dumb luck on my part.

I did not know the CP5611 was not supported by W10/11.

I cloned the older windows C: with portal and all various drivers and things working to a new SSD.

I swapped the running HDD C: with the cloned SSD C:

I then upgraded the PC in place with Win10 Enterprise (LTSC in my specific situation) - preferring to save existing software and files as the upgrade option offers.

Afterwards, the Win10 PC was able to use the CP5611.

However, I have *never* been able to replicate that on a newly built Win10/11 PC since the drivers will not install.

Choices:
1. Replace CP5611 with USB based adapter, - or - CP5612 (or newest PCI DP card)
2. Keep CP5611 and try to trick windows into using already installed drivers to make it work

Option 2: If you consider this option - first enhance original PC hardware with max RAM (16GB min, 32GB recommended) and cloned C: SSD
Next, attempt to upgrade-in-place the SSD C: from W2K to W10 (not W11) 22H2 or 21H2 LTSC (if your company has a VLA with M$oft).
If that upgrade succeeds, boot and try to access the PB network using the CP5611 and scan for DP devices (slaves in the tool).  If it works and finds them, you can then clone this SSD to another SSD.

Use that newly cloned SSD (NVMe, mSATA or SATA) as the boot drive for your new PC, booting it up in SAFE mode the first boot.  If it boots in safe mode, you have a chance.  Otherwise, you are back to option 1.

At this point after booting successfully in SAFE mode, I think your I.T. skills are likely sufficient to get the PC running with new motherboard / chipset / video / NICs / drivers that you previously downloaded and copied over after upgrading the cloned C: to W10.

Please post back your results.  The CP5611 is not capable of being installed in a Win10/11 system.  The only path forward that keeps the CP5611 is a maybe and definitely not something Siemens is going to recommend.  However, if your time is pretty cheap, it's possibly cheaper to go with option 2.  However, if your value far exceeds the cost of a CP5612 or USB PB interface, got with Option 1!  FYI, I've done both and really like option 1 far better.  No hair-pulling or sphincter tightening activities are involved.