2. Installation

2.1. Setup Process

The product can be installed by executing the setup.exe (requires administrator privileges) and follow the screen instructions:

Welcome page:
License Agreement:
Select Installation Folder:
Confirm Installation:
Installing EC-Engineer:
Installation Complete:

2.2. Silent Installation

The product can be also installed in silent mode by using the command line parameters of msiexec.

Sample 1: Installs EC-Engineer into default installation folder

msiexec /i c:/temp/ECEngineerSetup.msi /quiet /qn /norestart /log c:/temp/install.log

Sample 2: Installs EC-Engineer into C:/EC-Engineer

msiexec /i c:/temp/ECEngineerSetup.msi /quiet /qn /norestart /log c:/temp/install.log INSTALLLOCATION="C:/EC-Engineer"

For more information please refer command line parameters of msiexec.

Note

The system requirements Supported Slaves of Beckhoff EL6xxx will be not checked!

2.3. File and Folder Structure

The setup process will copy all necessary files into the following folder:

Installation directory: (Default: %ProgramFiles%/acontis_technologies/EC-Engineer)

/Doc

Release notes and the user manual

/EEC

Files for mapping emergency error codes

/Languages

Lanugage specific files
EC-Engineer.exe
EcMaster.dll
…

All users directory: ( %ALLUSERSPROFILE%/EC-Engineer, like C:/ProgramData/EC-Engineer)

/CAPTURE: Capture files which can be analysed in offline diagnosis mode (see Capture File)
/EtherCAT: EtherCAT Slave Information (ESI) Files Can be modified via ESI-Manager
/EMI: EtherCAT Master Information files (see Themes)
ESICache.xml: ESI-File-Cache for faster access of ESI files
EC-Engineer.log: Log file
User.myusername.xml: User specific settings

2.4. NDIS Driver

The Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) is the specification for a network driver architecture that allows transport protocols like TCP/IP to communicate with an underlying physical network adapter. For sending and receiving EtherCAT frames in Windows, EC-Engineer makes use of the well-known Windows packet capture library, WinPcap. However, WinPcap was based on the NDIS 5.x driver model, and development has ceased. The latest versions of Windows 10 do not support this old NDIS 5.x version anymore, so now EC-Engineer V3.2 includes an installation package to install the acontis NDIS 6.x Filter Module EcatNdis.sys. With this new Filter Module and the new NDIS Link Layer emllNdis.dll, it is now possible for EC-Engineer to work without WinPcap on all Windows 10 versions.