I did that for a while, but I found I got a lot of strange little glitches. Things wouldn't work, the VM would crash randomly. I couldn't get FTView 8.1 to work in my VM, but it works just fine on my host.
Plus it's convenient and I'm not crippling my system by having to split up its resources. That said, if my IT department forced Win10 on me, I'd have to go the VM route anyway. I still have VMs for old software that won't work on Win7, as well as a 32-bit XP VM solely for converting the old 32-bit Watcom SQL FactoryTalk View projects to new MSSQL 64-bit compatible projects.
Late last week Rockwell Automation released version 8.1 of FactoryTalk View Machine Edition. The recommended computer specs for running ViewME 8.1 include: Intel Pentium 4 2GHZ, 2GB of RAM, and 2GB of Hard disk space.
I work at a small systems integrator, most of what I do I can do on Linux, and the software that I can't such as RSLogix, et al we are running in VMs anyway. I talked to my boss about installing Linux on my laptop, because I prefer it and am more comfortable with some of the workflows I've developed, as well as some advantages like minimizing resource uses.
He considered it, but was concerned if we had to call someones tech support such as Rockwell's for an issue they might go, well you are running it on a VM with a Linux Host so that might be the problem, try it on a Windows host. So right now I'm running Win 7 with most of the software on VMs. OK, so update!A co worker was playing around and dug into the folder, ran compatibility on the.exe for Studio 5000, selected XP SP3, created a shortcut to the desktop and now it works! We currently cannot open projects from the file itself, but we can navigate to the file from WITHIN Studio 5000 and they open fine. Trying to open from the file gives an Elevated user error which may just be due to the system no currently being in the Domain (We are going to build then IT will image to 9 Identical systems and bring each one into the Domain).
Also running RSlinx Classic as a Service completely hosed the operation and the system had to be rebooted as the service would never run and could not be stopped. We rebooted, ran the control panel for RSlinx, unchecked 'Run as a Service', then started the Project. The icons do not display but that may just be a EDS file issue.As of right now it appears to work but it took some work around; but is that not the nature of Rockwell?. Who loves Rockwells software crashes!
It seems with the years, they have more rollbacks on firmware bugs and fixes. For me, it seems like V19 was the most stable version there was. However, RA newest servo system needs a V26 as a minimum to run. It seems like using a virtual machine is the only way to figure out how to run their software properly.
I am not impressed by their quality and their overpriced goods. A lot of their items is a just relabeling from other manufacturers and they claim it as theirs. Look at the Tolomatic servo motors.
Mmm very similar to ABs. Or their circuit breakers almost look like Eaton. Why are we paying so much?.