WinCC V7.4 News

Some of the New Features included in the release of WinCC V7.4

Operating Systems

WinCC V7.4 can run on the following Operating Systems:

WinCC Server

Windows 10 (Pro / Enterprise, 64-bit) *)
Windows 8.1 (Pro / Enterprise 64-bit) *)
Windows 7 SP1 (Pro / Enterprise 64-bit) *)
Windows Server 2012 R2 (standard 64-bit)
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (standard 64-bit)
*) WinCC Server limited to a maximum of three clients

WinCC Client

Windows 10 (Pro / Enterprise, 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (Pro / Enterprise, 32-bit)
Windows 8.1 (Pro / Enterprise, 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (Ultimate / Professional / Enterprise, 32-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (Ultimate / Professional / Enterprise, 64-bit)

WinCC Single-User

Windows 10 (Pro / Enterprise, 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (Pro / Enterprise, 32-bit)
Windows 8.1 (Pro / Enterprise, 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (Ultimate / Professional / Enterprise, 32-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (Ultimate / Professional / Enterprise, 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012 R2 (standard 64-bit)
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (standard 64-bit)

Licenses

New licensing model for WinCC/DataMonitor, WinCC/WebNavigator, and WinCC/WebUX options:

Licenses available for 1 / 3 / 10 / 30 / 100 clients in WinCC/WebNavigator and WinCC/WebUX, and for WinCC/DataMonitor 1 / 3 / 10 / 30 clients

License combination when WebNavigator and WebUX are available (Consult your Supplier)

SIMATIC S7-1200, S7-1500 Driver

The number of connections is increased

SIMATIC S7-1200: Up to 32 connections
SIMATIC S7-1500: Up to 128 connections

The maximum number of connections is also limited by resources, particularly CPU, RAM, and network card connections.

New connection tags facilitate the option to establish or terminate a connection.

The tag "@<ConnectionName>@ForceConnectionState" determines the state of the connection between WinCC station and S7-1200 / S7-1500.
The tag "@<ConnectionName>@ConnectionState" reports the current state of the connection.

Synchronization between the controller and WinCC tags

WinCC Explorer

The new features for the WinCC explorer include a new icon to view the PDL in thumbnail, also noted in the upper corner when the PDL is password protected with a small lock, and if the PDL is selected as a favorite, a small star appears.

If we switch to detail view, we also see the icons and a new column "Display Name", which is a new property added to the PDLs.

Configuration Editors

The functionality to use VBA in the editors has been added, we can now create, edit, and update tags from the VBA editor, just like in TagLogging, etc...

Graphics Designer

The drag-and-drop function has been incorporated. This means we can now drag variables as shown in the following image to our PDL, and an I/O field is automatically created; consult the other features for other objects.

We can also drag variables directly to TagLogging.

ActiveX Controls

Although the specific information states that two new controls have been introduced, it should be noted that only one new control has been introduced and another improved, since the WinCC SysDiagControl has been carried over from version 7.2.

Personally, I find the new BarChartControl very appropriate.

Here we can see the WinCC SysDiagControl and all the information this control provides about the connections.

The new BarChartControl

WebNavigator / DataMonitor

For both WinCC options, Internet Explorer V10 (32-bit) is released.

WebUX

From my point of view, there have been significant and very good changes here!!! Among the new features, we will highlight some of them as follows:

Touch operations on process images and WinCC Controls

User management via SIMATIC Logon

Object properties dynamic with:

Trigger
Tag connection
Direct connection
Dynamics dialog (When the image is saved, this code is converted to VBScript)
VBS actions

Supported Smart Objects:

Application window (for the script diagnostics)
Bar
The "Operator message" object property is supported for all objects.
The "Operator Activities Report" object property is supported for an I/O field.

Supported WinCC ActiveX Controls:

WinCC Alarm Web Control
WinCC OnlineTable Web Control
WinCC OnlineTrend Web Control
WinCC FunctionTrend Web Control
WinCC Ruler Web Control
WinCC Slider Control
WinCC Digital/Analog Clock Control
WinCC Gauge Control
WebBrowser Control

Finally, it is worth mentioning that Siemens has a demo project available to check the operation of WebNavigator and WebUX at the following link, and I hope they update it for version 7.4

June 23, 2016