Tools

Microsoft Windows

• hmimswcfg Single PowerShell script that prepares a Windows 10 or 11 PC as an HMI station, entirely from the command line and without touching the Windows control panels. It sets the PC name, workgroup and time, keeps the PC always on with automatic updates disabled, removes notifications, sounds, lock screen and other disturbances, locks down Windows keys, gestures and touch keyboard, enables Remote Desktop, FTP and the firewall rules for the industrial protocols, and configures automatic logon with the HMI started at logon. Every step is proposed as a question and can be run in test mode first. Includes the language files and the user manual in five languages.
• escada-startup-msw Example of automatic eScada startup on Windows, made of two files. escada.vbs launches escada.cmd with a hidden window, so nothing appears on the screen; the batch waits an optional delay, creates the public exchange folder if missing, moves the files dropped there by the maintenance staff (project, recipes, user and binary files) into the project tree, and finally starts the eScada server. The batch ends with two start variants, chosen by commenting one out: the start after the user log-on, where the batch launches the server and exits at once, and the start as a Windows service, where the batch waits for the server so that the service manager can monitor and stop it. The parameters to adapt (project name, working folder, paths) are grouped at the top of the batch.
• escada-service-msw Example of running eScada as a Windows service, so that the server starts with the PC before any user logs on. The service is created with NSSM, included in the archive: escada-service-install.cmd installs it, sets its description and the log-on account. The service program is the escada.cmd of the escada-startup-msw example with its service start variant enabled, never escada.vbs, which exits at once and would make the service restart in a loop. A one page note lists the commands needed afterwards: start, stop and query the service, change the executable path or the log-on account, uninstall it and view it from a remote PC.
• taskbar-msw TaskBar Hider v1.3, a small third-party freeware by IT Samples that hides and shows the Windows taskbar, either with a hotkey or from the command line: see its readme.txt for the usage. Its intended use is from the escada.cmd script of the escada-startup-msw example, which already contains a commented-out section that calls it: uncomment that section, after copying the program to the path it expects, to hide the taskbar before the HMI starts. Distributed as is with its readme and licence: it may be redistributed only in its entirety and must not be modified.