Source selection and TIA versions

• Search for TIA processes lists the running TIA Portal instances and their open projects, and Connect reads the selected project. TIA may ask you to approve the connection; answer “Yes”.
• Select project file… lets you pick a project file (.ap20, .ap15_1 …). Convert opens the file in the background, which can take a few minutes. If the project is open in another TIA, close it first.
• While TIA opens in the background, a Stop button appears. If you stop, the invisible TIA that is opening is closed; your own open TIA Portal is not touched.

If TIA Portal V17 – V20 is not installed, the environment panel under the Source step says “TIA Portal not found”. The two cards that connect to TIA are disabled and state the reason; the export package and project folder cards are highlighted.

Basic, Comfort, Advanced and Unified panels need TIA Portal. To convert them on a computer without TIA, first convert with Convert on a computer that has TIA Portal and turn on Also keep the export package in the Settings step. The package is written next to the .fvs file as a folder named after the project and ending in _Paket. You move this folder to the computer without TIA and open it with the Export package card. If no compiled WinCC Professional station is found in a project folder, Convert suggests the same route.

This source does not open TIA Portal. Convert reads the data of a compiled station from the project folder and from the WinCC SQL instance, so it works only for WinCC Professional (PC) stations. Because no PLC data is taken, symbolic tag addresses cannot be resolved; tags with absolute addresses are not affected. Reading through TIA also takes the PLC data.

The details of the reader are on the WinCC Professional page.

A package is a folder that holds screens, tags and PLC data as files. Select package folder… opens the folder. If the root contains package.json or one of the folders HMI\, UNI\ or PRO\, the folder counts as one package; otherwise each subfolder is looked up as a separate HMI.

• TIA Portal V17, V18, V19 or V20 must be installed. Convert uses the Openness bridge that matches the installed version.
• WinCC Unified needs V18 or newer. In V18 the Unified script modules and text lists, and in V19 the text lists, cannot be read.
• The Windows user must be in the local “Siemens TIA Openness” group. If TIA Portal is installed and you are not a member, the command appears in the Source step.
• The Siemens components are not part of the package. Convert loads them from the TIA Portal installation on the computer.
• Convert does not write to the TIA project: it attaches to a running TIA, or opens the project in an invisible instance and closes it without saving.

Projects saved in the installed TIA Portal version open directly. For a project saved in an older version (back to V15), Convert reads the version from the extension of the project file (such as .ap15_1) and upgrades the project without touching the original files:

• This step takes longer on large projects: it took 6 – 8 minutes on a 1.2 GB example, and on large projects it can approach ten minutes.
• The temporary copy needs free disk space of about 2 times the project size plus 512 MB.
• A project saved in a version newer than the installed one does not open; Convert reports this with an error message.