Hello all,

As the title states, I'm having issues inside Siemens TIA Portal V18 trying to simulate the HMI screen with PLC Simulator. The "Start Simulation" button in TIA portal stays grayed out and does not allow me to click it. This is only the case though for unified panels, as I can successfully simulate non-unified panels. The only thing I have found on Siemens' website lists the file SIMATIC WinCC Unified RT PC V18 Simulation & Trial as required for simulating WinCC Unified Confort with TIA portals V18, but when I try to install this, I get the error it cannot run in parallel with my currently installed software. 

Am I missing something simple here, or is there a bigger issue not allowing me to simulate Unified Comfort panels inside of TIA Portal V18?

For context, I recently installed V18 parallel with an existing installation of V17. My software list is attached below.

Hi CPATTY,

As far as I can see, you have WinCC Professional V17 installed on this PC.

Unfortunately, WinCC Unified and WinCC Professional are not compatible, due to the conflict that arises between the SQLs that each software component installs.

If you want to install and simulate (which is actually running a Unified PC) WinCC Unified V18, I'm afraid you'll have to install Unified V18 on another system or alternatively virtualize the software on this one.

Hi!

In the following link you will find in section 6 informartion about this topic:

Accordingly, the following software cannot be installed in parallel on one computer.

• WinCC Unified ES (V16, V17, V18) with WinCC Professional ES (V16, V17, V18).
• WinCC Unified RT (V16, V17, V18) with WinCC Professional ES & RT (V16, V17, V18)

https://support.industry.siemens.com/cs/ww/en/view/50204569

Br!

Hi again,

If the uninstall was complete, including the SQL that WinCC Professional V17 installed, then yes.

How do uninstall a SIMATIC WinCC Professional or a SIMATIC WinCC Runtime Professional SQL Server Instance?

However, please keep in mind that completely uninstalling SCADA systems/software is not always so easy, since in cases there are remaining files associated with the previous SQL and this prevents the installation of a new SQL.

In that case, I would recommend starting with a clean image of the operating system.