WinCC Flexible 2005 Toolbox and Properties View Missing: Complete Reset and Recovery Guide

Engineers commissioning or maintaining a SIMATIC HMI station sometimes open an existing WinCC Flexible 2005 project and discover that the Toolbox palette and the Properties window are no longer visible in the graphics editor. The menus that toggle those panes may also fail to respond, leaving the operator unable to add objects, change properties, or edit screens. The behavior is well documented in the Siemens knowledge base and is recoverable in the field without a full product reinstallation, provided the correct command line procedure and the matching Service Pack / Hotfix are applied.

This reference covers the exact reset procedure for the Hmies.exe runtime, the cache and template layout that controls the editor UI, supported command line switches, the known affected builds, and the verification steps to confirm the panes are restored before resuming commissioning.

1. Problem Statement and Symptoms

The defect manifests in the WinCC Flexible 2005 / 2008 graphics designer with the following observable symptoms:

• The Toolbox dock window is empty or completely absent from the editor workspace.
• The Properties window does not appear when an object (button, I/O field, graphic view, recipe view) is selected.
• Selecting View > Toolbox or View > Properties from the menu bar has no effect on the workspace.
• The docking layout is reset, with floating toolbars scattered across the main window.
• Project navigation, compilation, and download continue to work, so the project file is intact and the database is not corrupt.
• Restarting the engineering station does not restore the panes.

2. Root Cause Analysis

The Toolbox and Properties windows are persisted through two layers:

1. Editor templates stored under %ProgramData%\Siemens\WinCC flexible\Templates (and the per-user profile under %APPDATA%\Siemens\WinCC flexible). These templates control which dock windows are available and how they are arranged.
2. Local caches used by the WinCC Flexible editor to accelerate object loading. Caches include the activeX / COM registration cache, the docking layout cache, and the Help-Index cache.

When either layer is corrupted - for example by a forced shutdown, an interrupted Windows Update, a disk-full event, an interrupted user-profile copy (roaming profiles, mandatory profiles, redirected folders), or a third-party product that writes to the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Siemens\WinCC flexible - the editor can be launched with an inconsistent shell layout. The Windows docking framework then refuses to render the panes because the persisted XML fails schema validation.

Siemens Support has classified this as a defect in the original WinCC flexible 2005 build, addressed in Service Pack 1 for WinCC flexible 2005 (entry ID 23059737) and Hotfix 1 for WinCC flexible 2005 + SP1 (entry ID 24758642). The same symptom has also been reported on WinCC flexible 2008 SP1 and is resolved by the equivalent 2008 update.

3. Affected Versions and Environments

Operating systems confirmed to exhibit the symptom include Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2003 R2, and Windows 7 (32-bit) on a single-user or per-machine installation of the engineering software. Floating licenses served by the Siemens Automation License Manager are not implicated; the defect is independent of the license server.

4. Pre-flight Diagnostic Checklist

Before applying the reset, capture the following state so the change is reversible and audit-friendly:

1. Open the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) and list the WinCC flexible processes: Hmies.exe, HmiSmartStart.exe, HMIRtm.exe (if Runtime is installed). Note the PID and the user account.
2. Record the install path from Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs or by checking the registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Siemens\WinCC flexible\Setup, value InstallPath.
3. Make a backup of the user profile cache folder: xcopy /E /I /H /Y "%APPDATA%\Siemens" "%BACKUP%\Siemens_%DATE:~0,10%"
4. Make a backup of the project file (.hmi or .ldf / .log pair) before continuing. The reset procedure does not touch the project database, but conservative practice is to keep an external copy.
5. Confirm at least 1 GB free disk space on %SystemDrive%; the reset rewrites templates and the docking cache.
6. Disconnect the engineering station from any VPN or remote-management agent that injects registry values under HKCU.

5. Resolution: Recreate the WinCC Flexible Templates and Caches

This is the procedure sanctioned by Siemens Support to reset the editor shell to a defined original status. It deletes corrupted database templates and erases the cache, then forces the editor to rebuild them on next launch.

5.1 Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Close every open WinCC flexible instance. In Task Manager, end the processes Hmies.exe and HmiSmartStart.exe. Do not close Task Manager itself - you will need it to confirm step 4.
2. Open Start > Run (or press Win + R), paste the following line, and adapt the install path if WinCC flexible 2005 is not installed under the default Program Files location: "C:\Program Files\Siemens\SIMATIC WinCC flexible\WinCC flexible 2005\Hmies.exe" -reset -new -silentmode true -autoclose true On a 64-bit OS with the 32-bit engineering software, the path is C:\Program Files (x86)\Siemens\SIMATIC WinCC flexible\WinCC flexible 2005\Hmies.exe.
3. Press Enter. A new Hmies.exe instance will start in the background; the editor window is suppressed by -silentmode true while the templates and caches are rebuilt.
4. Return to Task Manager and confirm that a fresh Hmies.exe process is now listed with a new PID.
5. Wait 2 - 3 minutes for the rebuild to complete. Do not interrupt the process. The task will close itself; this is signalled by the disappearance of the new PID from Task Manager.
6. Launch WinCC flexible 2005 from the desktop icon or from Start > SIMATIC > WinCC flexible 2005. Open the affected project.
7. Verify the Toolbox and Properties windows are visible. If not, proceed to Section 6 (Service Pack / Hotfix update).

5.2 What the Switches Do

6. Resolution: Apply Service Pack 1 and Hotfix 1

If the reset procedure does not restore the panes, the underlying defect is still present in the editor build. Apply the official update stack:

1. Download Service Pack 1 for SIMATIC WinCC flexible 2005 from Siemens Support entry 23059737. Verify the checksum against the SHA-256 published on the entry before running the installer.
2. Run the SP1 installer as Administrator. The installer stops and restarts the Hmies.exe and HmiRTm.exe services automatically.
3. Reboot the engineering station to commit the registry and file replacements under %ProgramFiles%\Siemens\SIMATIC WinCC flexible\WinCC flexible 2005.
4. Download Hotfix 1 for WinCC flexible 2005 + SP1 from Siemens Support entry 24758642.
5. Apply the hotfix with all WinCC flexible components closed. The hotfix replaces the editor shell DLLs responsible for the dock manager.
6. Re-run the Section 5 reset procedure so the editor rebuilds the templates against the patched binaries.
7. Launch the engineering software, open the project, and verify the Toolbox and Properties window are present.

7. Resolution: Full Reinstallation (Last Resort)

If the reset and the patch stack both fail - for example because the install media is corrupted or because the user profile is read-only on a terminal server - the only remaining path is a full reinstallation. Use the original installation medium, install in the same path as the original install, restore the floating license from the Automation License Manager, and apply SP1 and Hotfix 1 before opening any project.

8. Cache and Database Layout Reference

The reset procedure clears the following locations. Use this list to verify the rebuild actually happened, or to manually delete caches when scripting the procedure across multiple engineering stations.

To script the reset on multiple stations, the equivalent manual cleanup is:

rmdir /S /Q "%APPDATA%\Siemens\WinCC flexible\Cache"
rmdir /S /Q "%APPDATA%\Siemens\WinCC flexible\Templates"
rmdir /S /Q "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Siemens\WinCC flexible"
reg delete "HKCU\Software\Siemens\WinCC flexible\Layout" /f

Always run the Hmies.exe -reset -new -silentmode true -autoclose true command after the manual cleanup, so the editor recreates the templates and cache in the correct order.

9. Verification Procedure

1. Open WinCC flexible 2005 and load the previously affected project.
2. Confirm the Toolbox window is visible on the left, listing Standard, Enhanced, and any project-specific object groups.
3. Click on a screen object (for example a button) and confirm the Properties window appears with the expected tabs: Properties, Events, Animation, Text.
4. Open View > Toolbars and confirm that Standard, Formatting, Object, and Layout toolbars are listed and toggleable.
5. Close and re-open the project; the layout should persist across launches.
6. Compile the project with Project > Compiler > All (complete). A successful compile confirms the shell and the project database are both healthy.
7. Run Project > Consistency Check and address any remaining warnings before resuming commissioning.

10. Field Deployment and Travel-Kit Considerations

Service engineers who are often on customer sites should keep a tested engineering image with the patch stack pre-applied. The following travel-kit checklist prevents the defect from blocking a service call:

• Pre-install WinCC flexible 2005 SP2 (which incorporates the SP1 + Hotfix 1 fixes) on the engineering laptop.
• Copy the two Siemens Support entries (23059737, 24758642) to a local folder and verify the SHA-256 checksums against the Siemens download server before the trip.
• Store a reset_winccflex.cmd script in C:\ServiceTools\Siemens that contains the canonical Hmies.exe -reset -new -silentmode true -autoclose true command. Test the script on the laptop at least once a quarter.
• Keep a recent backup of %APPDATA%\Siemens on an encrypted USB drive; restoring the profile is faster than the full reset when the defect is limited to a single user.
• If the customer is running a terminal server, document the user-profile store path (local vs. roaming) and confirm write permissions before issuing the reset command.

11. Preventive Measures

• Always shut down the engineering software via File > Exit. Killing Hmies.exe from Task Manager while a project is open is the single most common trigger for the cache corruption.
• Exclude the WinCC flexible install path and the %APPDATA%\Siemens tree from antivirus on-access scanning for write operations. Real-time AV scanning of the cache during the rebuild is a documented cause of partial regeneration.
• Avoid running registry cleaners or system optimizers on engineering stations; both write aggressively to HKCU.
• Set the engineering station power profile to High Performance and disable USB selective suspend to prevent mid-write power loss on the disk.
• Apply Windows updates only after a project backup and only with the engineering software closed.

12. Troubleshooting Matrix

13. Frequently Asked Questions