Hi fellas,

I keep getting more and more issues and sticky situations all the time. Once again I post my problem here so that someone will guide me the right way. Thanks for everything so far friends.

Now the problem.. Customer has a Panel-View 1000 and a CompactLogix system both with applications running inside them at present. Now he's willing to give me an order for modification of the logic and screens. I turned up at his place and found that the panel-view application is password protected. I am able to merely upload the present application and see it. (I'm using RS-View Machine Edition). The application or it could be even Machine Edition that is preventing me from making any changes to it.

I'm willing to re-write the application from scratch. Is it possible to download an altogether different application into the PV-1000, overriding the existing Password protection. I've not done this so far because the plant is running and I don't want to disturb things unless I'm doubly sure. Please note that the corresponding PLC program is not pass-word protected.

Please tell me what I can or cannot do in this situation. a million thanks for even hearing me out.

Regards, best wishes,

Keep in mind, with RSViewStudio, that the program that resides in the PanelView is the compiled program and not the full application program that one uses to edit in RSViewStudio. I am not aware of a way to upload the compiled MER file from the PanelView and back convert to the full APA application file.

Is it possible that you have not been provided the full APA application file and when you open the MER file that PanelView chokes?

I am not aware of the password feature for the RSViewStudio application, but I am aware of using passwords within the application to limit/control user access (in runtime).

I would suggest you go back to your systems integrator and ask for a copy of the APA application file.

Additionally, I suggest you start to build a specification that your employer will use when purchasing equipment that spells out no passwords are to be integrated into the programs to limit your access to any information (operator password protection is expected, but engineers should never be locked out). Some manufacturers learn about the password feature of the PLCs and then try to lock out customers to limit liability. I have been in this situation before and we eventually put into our purchasing contracts that no passwords are allowed to limit engineers full access to all program elements. If a supplier truly has an issue with customers getting into the programs and causing trouble, then I as the buyer would be looking for a new supplier.

Here is a detailed description of the process to convert a .mer file to a .apa.



Create a new application in RSView Studio with the name that you want to restore your .mer application to, for this example let us use the name “Restored App”. The new application is stored at: “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\RSView Enterprise\ME\HMI projects\Restored App\”



Upload the .mer file from the panelview plus using the file transfer utility provided with RSView Studio. Run the uploaded .mer application on your PC. You will get a warning most likely that you current license will only work for two hours, then you will get a warning stating that you have too many screens to run on your current license. These warnings are fine this will still work. Anyways, once it has been opened it extracts all the files from the .mer file into the following directory: “C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temp\~MER.00\”


Select all the files within the “~MER.00” directory and copy them into the “Restored App” directory overwriting all the files in the “Restored App” directory. Now go and open the RSView Studio and select Restored App. Like I mentioned before you will certainly lose the alarm messages, but you can open the M_Alarms directory and read the MachineAlarms.mal file in notepad.

Passwords are another matter. I got this info from: http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.ph...p;highlight=mer

This is strange! If you open up the "User Accounts" and click on the "RSView 3.x accounts" tab, then click on the upper left square in the table to select all, then do a control-c, and paste it into Excel. Column "T" has the passwords in it.