Phillip (Customer) asked a question.
I can install Productivity Suite v3.10 on any Windows 10 or Windows 11 computer and everything works fine.
One exception is using a virtual version of Windows 10, where the underlying hardware is running on an ARM architecture. For the ARM computer, I get an error at the end of the installation that reports "Driver installation finished with message: Unknown error (0xe0000242)(0xe0000242)". For this install, my P1-540 PLC is not recognized over USB or ethernet in the software. See screen shot.
More specifically - this virtualized version of Windows 10 is running on an M1 MacBook Pro. This shouldn't matter, since the virtualized version of Windows is a full-fledged version of Windows for ARM systems.
For the non-ARM computer, I am prompted at the end of the install to install "Automation Direct Universal Serial Bus c..." which is obviously the software piece which is failing during the ARM install. See screen shot.
Can anyone provide some feedback as to how I can get an ARM version of this USB controller or otherwise get it running?
I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you but I'm facing the same issue with C-More and Do-More. Let's cross our fingers that we don't have to wait as long for ARM USB drivers as we did for x64 drivers.
I doubt there are any ARM drivers as that is a completely unsupported CPU type. Only a standard x86 CPU version of Windows is supported.
You may be able to find drivers through the manufacturer if you can find out what serial chipset is used, but that seems unlikely to me as well.
Your best bet would be to program it over Ethernet. As for why your Ethernet is currently not working, I would bet that has to do with the virtualization part itself and would need to be fixed with whatever virtualization drivers you need or pass-through stuff.
Thanks to both of you for your replies.
Perhaps AutomationDirect will chime in about possible alternative USB drivers for ARM. ARM architecture is the future of computing, so it would be nice to see this supported. I would be genuinely surprised if AD is building their own USB drivers. I bet there's an off-the-shelf driver from elsewhere that would work.
Does anyone know if these Automation Direct PLCs are supported by any other ladder logic programming suites?
Many thanks,
"ARM architecture is the future of computing, so it would be nice to see this supported."
Yes, it probably is. Unfortunately, industrial automation equipment has historically been 5-10 years behind modern technology in the office space since a part or chipset needs to be proven 100% reliable when the product is designed. With ARM just breaking into standard desktop space I would bet it will be at least a couple of years before we really see software and driver support for it
As for other programming software, I do not believe so. There is an open industry standard that has come about in the past decade that allows using any software package that conforms to that standard (IEC 61131-3), but to my knowledge Automation Direct PLCs do not use that open programming standard.