Siemens TiaPortal on Parallels with Mac M2 Max/Pro

[RobinE1]

Hello everyone,
I am currently doing technical training and need a powerful computer for this. I'm completely done with Windows and would like to buy the new MacBook Pro M2 Max (2023). For my further education I need some programs, which unfortunately are only available for Windows (SolidWorks/ TIAPortal,...) I don't worry about SolidWorks. Is anyone aware that the Siemens TIAPortal program runs on an M2 Max with Parallels? Thank you in advance for the info! Best regards!

 

[PaulM71]

This is really weird. That's exactly what I'm trying right now. I have the new M2 Max MacBook Pro. I tried TIA Portal V18 and ran into a few issues and have hit a roadblock.
Firstly, if you have ever installed TIA Portal on Windows you will know that first you need to install the optional .Net v3.5 package. This is not installed by Windows by default.
During the installation of TIA Portal I encountered an error. Although the installation completed, the installation summary reported that it was "unable to modify some system settings". I ignored this because otherwise the application seemed to install OK.
The first thing I always do with a fresh installation is run TIA Administrator V2 to update TIA Portal. This didn't let me log in. But the resolution was easy. Go into Windows settings and create a password for your Windows account (Parallels doesn't set a password by default and for whatever reason the TIA Administrator website won't accept a blank password).
So after all this I was able to run TIA Portal and open my project, but as soon as I go to the project view it crashes and I cannot get past this. It is repeatable and I have no solution as of yet but have created a support ticket. The crash log talks about OpenSSL but I'm not an IT expert, see attached.
So at least for me, no I am not able to run TIA Portal using Parallels App Store Edition v1.8.1 and Windows 11 Pro (Arm) on my M2 Max MacBook Pro at this point in time. This is a shame because I was otherwise fairly impressed by the initial performance I was seeing.
I will reply to this message if Parallels support is able to provide a workaround.
Paul

 

[PaulM71]

I forgot to add the attachment. I should add that I am currently trialling Parallels and if they can't manage to resolve this issue with TIA Portal I won't proceed with my subscription.

 

[PaulM71]

For whatever reason my replies have not been released to the forum. Anyway just to close out the issue, Parallels did not offer any solution and instead pointed me towards the application developer (Siemens). This obviously is not a solution because the first thing Siemens will say is don't run the software inside a VM. The onus really is on the VM solution provider when applications don't work as they should inside the VM. This obviously isn't an acceptable answer so I will abandon my trial and cancel my subscription.

 

[RobinE1]

Hey Paul, first of all, thank you very much for your detailed answers. For me, this means that compatibility between Parallels, M2 Pro/ Ultra and Tia Portal is not possible and will never be possible?

 

[YangZ5]

I have Tia Portal V15.1 running on my MacBook Pro, it runs ok except the ISO network interface does not work so I could not assign IP address to a brand new PLC. Apart from that, all the other function works perfectly. But when I tried to run Tia Portal V17 and V18, I have both installed ok but Tia Portal crashes as soon as I switch to 'Project View'. I have not found a solution yet.

 

[MichaelM86]

I have Tia Portal V15.1 running on my MacBook Pro, it runs ok except the ISO network interface does not work so I could not assign IP address to a brand new PLC. Apart from that, all the other function works perfectly. But when I tried to run Tia Portal V17 and V18, I have both installed ok but Tia Portal crashes as soon as I switch to 'Project View'. I have not found a solution yet.

 

[MichaelM86]

Hi, I am not able to install Tia 15.1. Could you Tell me how to install it?

 

[KrisS1]

I have Tia Portal V15.1 running on my MacBook Pro, it runs ok except the ISO network interface does not work so I could not assign IP address to a brand new PLC. Apart from that, all the other function works perfectly. But when I tried to run Tia Portal V17 and V18, I have both installed ok but Tia Portal crashes as soon as I switch to 'Project View'. I have not found a solution yet.

Did you ever have any luck getting network connectivity to work?
Have TIA Portal 17, and another older intel MBP running TIA V13 and V15 on a Win10 install on VMWare Fusion, Apple OEM Thunderbolt ethernet adapter connected to the S7-1200 thru a cheap netgear switch and I can see and connect to and program an S7-1200 PLC just fine. Same PLC, 2021 M1 Pro Macbook, Parallels 20.1.0, Win11, have a Realtek USB C gigabit ethernet adapter connected directly to windows, have Windows IP set to 192.168.0.100 and a private network, using advanced IP scanner I can see the Siemens PLC active at 192.168.0.1, but can't detect an unknown S7-1200 from project view or see it on the accessible devices tab when I open TIA. Have network "disconnected" in Parallels settings to keep TIA from trying to access the wifi network

Have added Parallels to developer tools, added TIA to firewall exclusions, shut firewall off on private and public and domain, updated ethernet adapter driver...at this point I'm tempted to try buying the Apple badged Belkin USB-C ethernet adapter just to see if its any different but the Realtek one has worked fine with other industrial automation software on this same windows install, and maybe most frustrating I can see and ping and get a timely response from the PLC in command prompt and when I scan the network in Siemens I can see network activity on the switch LED's but the Siemens software just won't see it

2 people on the Siemens forums have posted that they've gotten M-series macs to connect to their PLCs but not much in the "how" department unfortunately here: https://support.industry.siemens.co...o-plc-from-macbook-with-m1-chip/290866?page=0

 

[AdamH7]

To add to this post- I made the jump from an i9 to an M4 MacBook and foolishly expected to do what I've always done, simply move the .pvm file and away I go. But sadly not- I was completely unaware of the implications of the change to ARM from X86.

I managed to get everything working on a new install of Win 11 (once installed) apart from TIA V18. Pretty much every driver needed to be manually downloaded from the manufacturer (FTDI, USB GbE, etc) or via windows update. The only thing I couldn't resolve was TIA, as soon as I opened a project and wanted to open a block, it crashed. I eventually download the most current version (at this time V18 SP5) and it was straight in! Connection to a device was then a headache and required the IP address within the parallels config to be changed to the correct range, and then the adaptor itself, as per normal. After that I was able to ping the device but it couldn't see it in the connection window- changing the type of device it is searching to "show all devices with the same address" and it was away and working- this seems to be consistent for everything I've now connected to.

The big difference with the ARM chip after my first week in action- laptop barely warms up, slightly faster operation in TIA (and significantly faster everywhere else) and the big one, battery life. More than a day on Site and over 40% battery remaining- I'd be lucky to get 3 hours beforehand and red hot and noisy laptop. Best part of a weekend spent setting it up, finding old installation files for all my softwares, transferring saved files and then the TIA headache, but it's working and has been well worth the effort.
Also a word to the wise that don't want to use migration assistant- I couldn't transfer between Macs, having set my old one to restart in target disk mode after having disabled FileVault, using a thunderbolt cable. I needed to use 2x ethernet adaptors and a cat 6, then in Mac settings enable "file sharing" and this moved some massive files/ folders in minutes- rather than via an external drive.

Hope this helps someone else as it was a lot of wasted time my end!

 

[Veli-MattiM]

To add to this post- I made the jump from an i9 to an M4 MacBook and foolishly expected to do what I've always done, simply move the .pvm file and away I go. But sadly not- I was completely unaware of the implications of the change to ARM from X86.

I managed to get everything working on a new install of Win 11 (once installed) apart from TIA V18. Pretty much every driver needed to be manually downloaded from the manufacturer (FTDI, USB GbE, etc) or via windows update. The only thing I couldn't resolve was TIA, as soon as I opened a project and wanted to open a block, it crashed. I eventually download the most current version (at this time V18 SP5) and it was straight in! Connection to a device was then a headache and required the IP address within the parallels config to be changed to the correct range, and then the adaptor itself, as per normal. After that I was able to ping the device but it couldn't see it in the connection window- changing the type of device it is searching to "show all devices with the same address" and it was away and working- this seems to be consistent for everything I've now connected to.

The big difference with the ARM chip after my first week in action- laptop barely warms up, slightly faster operation in TIA (and significantly faster everywhere else) and the big one, battery life. More than a day on Site and over 40% battery remaining- I'd be lucky to get 3 hours beforehand and red hot and noisy laptop. Best part of a weekend spent setting it up, finding old installation files for all my softwares, transferring saved files and then the TIA headache, but it's working and has been well worth the effort.
Also a word to the wise that don't want to use migration assistant- I couldn't transfer between Macs, having set my old one to restart in target disk mode after having disabled FileVault, using a thunderbolt cable. I needed to use 2x ethernet adaptors and a cat 6, then in Mac settings enable "file sharing" and this moved some massive files/ folders in minutes- rather than via an external drive.

Hope this helps someone else as it was a lot of wasted time my end!

Hello! I've just installed the TIA V20 on an M3 air and parallels with windows 11, and all that works great. What doesn't work great is the PLCSIM V7. So I can simulate an S7-1200 just fine and works well, but when I try to power on a S7-1500 simulator, the app just says "Instance_1 ran into an unexpected issue" etc. On the installation of the PLCSim, the installation sort of fails. It cannot install the PLCSIM.Advanced.DriverInstaller.exe as it is an x86 kernel mode driver and the ARM doesn't support it. I think that might be the problem and I'm looking for an answer if anyone has found any solution for this? Annoying ass h*ll... might have to get the old intel macbook out just for the sake of getting this to work... Only reason I need this is for school...

 

[AdamH7]

I'm not sure I can help as I'm having issues installing V20. It seems to lock up and only partially install. I've not had time to look further into it but I do recall having to download the latest version from the Siemens website when I did V18. May be worth trying for PLC sim?

 

[BryanC9]

Hello all,
I have M2 Max MacBook Pro. TIA and studio5000 installs are no problem after you downloaded net3.5 separately and install them. The only issue I deal with is the PLC SIM. I haven't found a fix for it. If your TIA is closing out as soon as you launch, make your you have all the correct hardware GSD, and Update files are in unison. Ive ran TIA v17, 15.1, and 14 no problem. Also run Codesys 2.3 and 3.5 no problem on VMS. Studio 5000 vs30.02. Somatic STEP7(the olddd version). WorkVisual 6.0 for Kuka works just fine. I haven't tried any other softwares related to these fields.
I have a gripe with studio5000. It's not always stable for me but TIA is solid.
Way faster than my windows machines, just no simulation(yet) unfortunately