messer beckhoff move from win xp to win 10

[krugtech]

I have a plasma table running twincat on windows XP. my IT people say XP has to go. It looks like theres 2 propriety pci cards in what seems to be an old pentium 4 computer. one card looks like some kind of keyboard/mouse/monitor extender, BECKHOFF CP9035 and the other is an optical interface BECKHOFF FC2001.

I could care less about this crazy keyboard/mouse/monitor, there are way better less proprietary ways to to this in 2018.

What are my chances of sticking that FC2001 in a free pci slot in a win 10 pc and getting this thing running?

Chris Krug

http://krugtech.com/

Maximum Up-time, Minimum BS

 

[itsmoked]

There are so many reasons that could not work.

Why not ask

http://www.messer-cs.com

or find a user's group so you don't have to re-invent the wheel trying?

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[krugtech]

Dealing with most of these vendors is problematic. Support was marginal before the economy picked up and now it's worse.

They all talk about upgrades but are too busy with the more profitable work. The last machine I moved from win NT to win 7, all I needed to do was rework an interface card to work with a newer computer, load the software and then transfer the control configuration from the old computer to the new computer.

Chris Krug

http://krugtech.com/

Maximum Up-time, Minimum BS

 

[itsmoked]

Dealing with most of these vendors is problematic. Support was marginal before the economy picked up and now it's worse.

I was seeing this behavior but didn't make that mental step to it being about the economy. Interesting.

It sounds like you've done some of this. In that case I suggest you give it a try. If the machine uses XP as a pseudo realtime platform you can have troubles with the energy saving defaults found in 7 thru 10. If so you need to tweak the processor's minimum allowed speed setting.

Another possibility might be an end run around the myopic IT department. If they're worried about threats isolate the machine from the network using sneaker-net or a secure router that requires logins to get thru.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[krugtech]

The IT department will never stop bitching if it isn't updated. mentioning XP brings a knee jerk panic and fear reaction every time. Most of my customers are more than happy to get from DOS or NT to XP. Thank you for the advice on the real time aspects of this. They were running this on an old pentium 4, I'm surprised it didn't catch on fire.

I've managed to replicate most of the install on a win 10 machine with newer hardware. Licensing and configuration are being a pia. another idea is doing an upgrade from xp to vista business to 7 or 10.

I'll try a few ideas and make a few hard drive images with different configs and go out to the machine and give it a shot. This is one of the more complicated upgrades I've attempted.

The economy was like a broken down old car and now it's going fast for the first time in a long time and crap is blowing up and falling off and we're doing in flight repairs. I'll take this over 2008 any day



Chris Krug

http://krugtech.com/

Maximum Up-time, Minimum BS

 

[FreddyNurk]

I believe that there's a version of XP (Embedded) that might still be in support for a little while yet, whether it has the capability to do what you want is another question.

I'm also informed that there is the option for paying for support for XP from Microsoft (the cost is horrendous, but it does get around the need to provide patches and a supported platform). If IT is aware of the option then they're likely already aware of the cost.

Of course, the unspoken issue is that if the hardware fails, then its a whole new migration path anyway, no doubt you're already aware of that.

EDMS Australia

 

[itsmoked]

Freddy; I'd not heard of that embedded XP. Interesting. I'd have expected it to be WindowsCE.


krugtech; Win7 Pro had advertised XP back compatibility mode.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[krugtech]

I thought about xp mode I'm not sure how it would affect the real time aspect and i'm not sure if it would pass through to the interface card. I guess I could try it.

Chris Krug

http://krugtech.com/

Maximum Up-time, Minimum BS

 

[FreddyNurk]

I did a bit more research, as it'd been a little while since I'd last looked, it would appear that XP Embedded support may have ended in 2017.
XP VM mode may also be possible, but I'd have the same concerns regarding the interface cards, and the last time I looked at the native XP Mode VM in Win 7, the download options ended at the same time support ended (its typically not an inbuilt function, rather its an additional pack that needs to be downloaded separately).

My experiences in using WinXP Mode to run some ancient RTU software weren't that good, it was quite slow and cumbersome to use.



EDMS Australia

 

[itsmoked]

For reference here's what I'm talking about for controlling the CPU.

Normally using new comps/operating systems causes problems because at the hardware level the new comps will jink the cpu speed all over the place. For instance if you're running MACH3 on a new computer it will drive you crazy with undeclared errors and hangs because it's using the cpu as a realtime source and watches it during setup so it knows what to do to keep a constant timebase that the trajectory planner runs with.

Except. The CPU can randomly decide to idle in the midst of running a job which completely shellacs the job being run.

Changing the settings in the screen above to 100% is the minimum allowed, completely stops the problem because no more background throttling can occur.

Likewise if you fear the computer will run too fast for your situation you can, instead, set the maximum to, say, 10% and that should fix things as all programs have to understand the various speeds they might have to contend with and will contend with them, but they don't understand modern dynamic speed changes.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[controlsdude]

Why not use the virtual machine running xp on your windows 10? I think there are a few VM software packages that can map the hardware in quite easily.