For clients operating industrial plant PLCs & SCADA interface software the path to upgrading an operating system has always been one of caution & careful planning.  Expensive licence upgrades, end of life (and support) for older hardware or simply the early adopter’s pain of discovering that your provider has not yet written the updated software you so desperately need – are some of the all too familiar horror stories we hear.

Now it seems the choice of doing nothing has been taken away from you too.  In May this year Microsoft made an unprecedented move to implement its vision of upgrading all its customers to Windows 10 – via enforced upgrades.  For years we have been informed that the way to stay secure was to keep our operating systems up to date, ideally automatically through the ever vigilant windows update service.  This is the same service that this year began downloading Windows 10 installation files to your PC without your knowledge and in May this year issued you an ultimatum, where simply closing the message constituted your approval to proceed & upgrade your operating system – irrespective of the consequences.

As many of our clients can attest to – controls system software licencing is as complicated as it is expensive.  From a user’s point of view, it would appear that the software companies spend almost as much time and effort protecting their product as they do developing it.  With justification – being as the life cycle for some of the plant & equipment can extend into decades.  Like the majority of product licencing software, change is viewed as a bad thing.  Entire operating system change, no surprises here – is deemed to be very bad.  Time to check on those support agreements…

While the first wave has mostly passed, the second wave will be made up of remote, disconnected PC’s, still running Windows 7 or 8.   Connect it to the internet for drivers for a simple hardware fix or a few patches or updates during a shutdown and a couple of reboots later you find yourself staring at quite a different PC and quite a few headaches.

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Rockwell Automation, one of the largest suppliers of PLC and automation equipment serving heavy industry, have currently indicated that Windows 10 support for most of their products is targeted for December 2016 and will typically include Windows Professional Edition. While detailed information is currently scarce, it provides some optimism for an easy and trouble free migration. For those who have access, further information and product updates can be found with Rockwell’s knowledgebase FAQ answer #823411 (FAQ: Rockwell Automation and Microsoft Product Compatibility). Otherwise, keep an eye out here for updates, or please feel free to contact us at BRS Electrical for support.