Configuring WinCC Runtime Advanced V13 SP1 on a PC Station to Supervise an S7-1200

When a PC with TIA Portal V13 SP1 and WinCC Runtime Advanced is used to supervise a SIMATIC S7-1200 PLC, the most common startup blockers are the wrong runtime loader being launched, the PC Station not being compiled and downloaded, and a PG/PC interface assignment that points to a network adapter that is not the one physically connected to the PLC. This reference walks through the correct PC Station topology, explains the difference between WinCC Runtime Loader (which consumes the generated .fwc file) and WinCC RT Start (which is reserved for WinCC Runtime Professional and expects a .mcx), and shows the exact parameter values that fix the .fwc-not-found error and the PC Station download failure that often appears when the project is moved to a second engineering PC.

1. Problem Overview and Symptom Mapping

Engineers attempting to bring up a PC-based HMI for an S7-1200 typically hit one or more of the following failures. The matrix below maps the user-visible symptom to the underlying engineering cause.

2. Prerequisites and Software Stack

The following components are required on the engineering PC that will also act as the Runtime PC.

• SIMATIC STEP 7 Basic or Professional V13 SP1 (or V13 SP2 Update 4 or later) with TIA Portal.
• SIMATIC WinCC V13 SP1 (or V13 SP2) engineering, including WinCC Runtime Advanced installed on the same PC.
• A valid WinCC Runtime Advanced license installed on the target PC. The license tiers are 128, 512, 2048, 4096, 8192, and 16384 PowerTags. A 65k PowerTag variant is available for very large projects.
• S7-1200 CPU firmware compatible with TIA Portal V13 SP1. V13 SP1 introduced full support for S7-1200 V4.0 firmware. CPUs on V4.1 or V4.2 firmware work as long as the engineering installation matches.
• TCP/IP reachability between the PC Ethernet adapter and the S7-1200 PROFINET port. Direct cable, unmanaged switch, or managed switch on a flat subnet are all acceptable.
• Administrator rights on the engineering PC, required for PROFINET DCP naming, firewall rules, and the Set PG/PC Interface tool.

WinCC V13 SP2 Runtime is delivered as a separate installation package and must be installed alongside the engineering components. The supported installation order and known issues are documented in the official release note:

SIMATIC WinCC V13 SP2 Runtime (TIA Portal) — Siemens Support entry 109746268

3. PC Station Topology and Device Insertion

Open the project in TIA Portal V13 SP1 and insert a PC Station in the project tree.

1. In the project tree, right-click Devices & Networks → Add new device → PC Systems → PC Station.
2. Open the device view of the PC Station and add the following modules from the hardware catalog:
   • IE General (under Communication modules → PROFINET). This is the PROFINET interface of the PC. Assign a fixed IP address (for example 192.168.0.10, subnet mask 255.255.255.0) and a PROFINET device name (for example pc-station-1).
   • WinCC RT Advanced (under HMI or Visualization). This is the runtime slot. The runtime itself does not require a separate IP; the connection is brokered through the IE General.
3. Open Devices & Networks → Network view. Draw a PROFINET subnet line between the IE General of the PC Station and the PROFINET interface of the S7-1200 CPU.
4. Drag the S7-1200 from the project tree onto the network view and connect its PROFINET interface to the same subnet. The S7-1200's IP address (for example 192.168.0.20) must lie in the same subnet (192.168.0.0/24).

4. WinCC Runtime Loader versus WinCC RT Start

The two launchers are not interchangeable. Mixing them is the most common reason for the "file cannot be found in the project folder" error reported in the original support case.

Procedure to launch Runtime Advanced on the PC:

1. In the project tree, select the PC Station's WinCC RT Advanced node.
2. Right-click → Compile → Software (all). Confirm the compile completes without errors. The .fwc file is generated under <project path>\IM\HMI\<PC station>\Generated.
3. Right-click the WinCC RT Advanced node → Start runtime. TIA Portal silently invokes the Runtime Loader, which then opens the .fwc automatically.
4. For a manual launch outside TIA Portal, start Siemens\Automation\WinCC RT Advanced\WinCCRuntimeLoader.exe and open the .fwc file from disk. Pin this loader to the taskbar to avoid accidentally launching RT Start.

5. Configuring the HMI Connection (S7 REL)

The HMI connection is a logical S7 connection brokered by the IE General of the PC Station. It is not a raw TCP socket in the PLC and it does not require a separate slot in the S7-1200 connection table.

1. In Devices & Networks → Connections, select the HMI connection type from the toolbar.
2. Click the IE General (PC Station) port first, then click the S7-1200 PROFINET port. TIA Portal creates a connection with the following default parameters:

3. Open the S7-1200 CPU properties → Protection & Security → Connection mechanisms. The HMI connection (S7 REL) uses the S7-1200's standard PG/OP communication channel and does not require PUT/GET to be enabled. Enable Permit access with PUT/GET from remote partner only if a third-party S7 client (such as a non-Siemens OPC server) needs to write to the CPU.
4. Open the HMI tag table. For each external tag, set the connection column to HMI_Connection_1, the PLC tag column to the symbolic name (for example "Data_block_1"."Motor_Speed), and the acquisition mode to Cyclic in operation.

6. PG/PC Interface Assignment and Download Path

The TIA Portal download dialog uses the Windows network adapter that is physically connected to the PLC. Wrong selection here is the most frequent reason an "extended download to devices" attempt fails on a second PC even though pings succeed. The S7ONLINE access point is per-machine, not per-project.

1. Open Set PG/PC Interface from the Siemens Automation program group (or run SetPgPcInterface.exe from the TIA Portal install directory).
2. Select the access point S7ONLINE and the physical Ethernet adapter bound to the 192.168.0.x subnet. Do not select a virtual adapter, VPN tunnel, or Wi-Fi interface unless that is the only path to the PLC.
3. In TIA Portal, right-click the PC Station → Download to device → Hardware and software (all).
4. In the Select target device dialog, choose Show devices with the same address. The PC Station appears with its 192.168.0.10 address and its PROFINET name pc-station-1. Select it and confirm.

If the PC Station does not appear in the target list, manually assign the PROFINET device name first.

1. Right-click the IE General of the PC Station in the device view → Assign PROFINET name.
2. Enter pc-station-1, confirm the IP, and let TIA Portal perform the PROFINET DCP naming. This step requires the adapter to be on the same subnet and is the one that fails silently if a firewall is blocking UDP port 34964 (PROFINET DCP).

7. S7-1200 Protection, Security and Connection Resource Settings

The S7-1200 has tight access controls that often surface as silent HMI failures. Confirm the following before commissioning.

8. Downloading the PC Station and Compiling the .fwc

The full download sequence is:

1. Compile the S7-1200 program → Download to device → Hardware and software → S7-1200. Wait for "Download completed (with errors): 0".
2. Compile the HMI / PC Station → Download to device → Software (all) → PC Station. Wait for "Download completed (with errors): 0".
3. A non-zero error count on the PC Station usually means the IE General IP conflict was not resolved, the PROFINET name was not assigned, or the Set PG/PC Interface selection is on the wrong adapter.
4. Verify the file exists at <project>\IM\HMI\<PC station name>\<PC station name>.fwc. If it is missing, the compile was not performed against the WinCC RT Advanced node. Re-select the node and re-compile.

9. Starting the Runtime and Verifying Live Tag Updates

To confirm supervision is live:

1. Launch WinCCRuntimeLoader.exe and open the .fwc.
2. Switch to a screen that has a numeric I/O field bound to a known PLC tag (for example MW10 or a data block tag).
3. On the S7-1200, force a value in the watch table of TIA Portal. The HMI should update within the configured acquisition cycle (default 1 s).
4. Open the Runtime Loader diagnostics window (Tools → Status of connections) and confirm the HMI_Connection_1 status reads Connected with the partner IP of the S7-1200. The connection status block also shows the cycle time and the number of failed telegrams since startup.
5. If the status shows Disconnected with "WSAETIMEDOUT" or "Connection refused", the S7-1200 is not in RUN, the IP is unreachable, or the firewall is blocking TCP/102. The status code is a useful first-level filter.

10. HMI Tag Configuration Patterns

For predictable runtime behavior, follow these HMI tag table patterns.

• Group tags by PLC data block. Use naming convention <DB name>.<tag name> to keep the connection column consistent across the table.
• Set the acquisition cycle to the minimum required for the screen that displays the tag. A 100 ms cycle on a slow analog that is read every 5 s wastes PROFINET bandwidth.
• For arrays, configure the entire array as one tag and bind individual elements from the screen. Configuring each element as a separate tag burns PowerTags needlessly.
• Use Cyclic in operation for normal process values, Cyclic continuous for logging, and On demand for values that are read only when a button is pressed.
• For diagnostics, enable the system diagnostic tags (date/time, runtime version, connection status) to surface in the HMI without consuming a PowerTag.

11. PowerTag and System Limits

WinCC Runtime Advanced enforces hard limits based on the installed license. A misconfigured project that exceeds the licensed PowerTag count will compile but refuse to start, surfacing as "License not sufficient" in the Runtime Loader log. The most relevant limits for a PC station are listed below; the full table is maintained in the TIA Portal help.

For the complete, current limit table, see the official Siemens TIA Portal help:

Performance features of WinCC Runtime Advanced — TIA Portal help

12. Troubleshooting Matrix

13. Network, Firewall and Performance Notes

PC-based Runtime Advanced is more sensitive to network conditions than a panel, because the Windows TCP stack, the antivirus filter, and the PROFINET DCP responder all run in user space. Keep these considerations in mind.

• Put the PC and the S7-1200 on the same physical switch or directly cabled. A VLAN hop introduces a few milliseconds of latency, which is invisible at 1 s cycles but problematic at 100 ms cycles.
• Reserve a static IP for the engineering PC via DHCP reservation. A Runtime that loses its IP at midnight because the lease expired will not reconnect automatically in all configurations.
• Whitelist the Runtime Loader, S7 communication executables, and the TIA Portal in the corporate antivirus. Some endpoint protection products inspect PROFINET frames and corrupt the DCP discovery.
• Disable Windows energy saver on the Ethernet adapter. A power-managed adapter can drop UDP/34964 packets during idle, which manifests as random "target not found" errors in TIA Portal.

14. Frequently Asked Questions