Download your project to the target device

Use the Remote Management tool to download your project to a target device.

Before you begin this task, your project development workstation should be connected to the target device and Remote Agent should be installed and running on that device. For more information, see Install Embedded HMI on Windows Embedded.

To download your project:

1. On the Home tab of the ribbon, in the Remote Management group, click Connect.

   The Remote Management dialog box is displayed with the Target tab selected.

2. On the Target tab of the dialog box, confirm that you are connected to the target device. If you are not, review the connection settings and then click Connect.

   The Remote Management tool connects to the target device and its status is displayed.

   Tip: If the connection settings are correct but you cannot connect to the target device, make sure the Remote Agent program is running on the device, empty the device's \Temp directory, and then try again.

3. In the list of tabs on the left, click Project.

   The Project tab of the dialog box is displayed.

   

   

4. In the Local box, you should see the location of the project that is currently open in your development environment. This is the project that will be downloaded to the target device. If it is not the project that you want to download, cancel the Remote Management dialog box, open the correct project, and then restart this task.

5. In the Target box, confirm the location of the project folder on the target device. If the location is not correct, click the browse button to the right and then select a new location.

   Assuming you are properly connected to the device, you should be able to browse it like a network volume.

   Note: By default, you can download the project to any location on the target device, even to another location outside the folder that contains the project runtime software. You might consider this a security vulnerability, however, so if you want to restrict downloads only to the folder that contains the project runtime software, go to Remote Agent on the target device and select Lock project download.

6. Click Download to download the entire project to the target device, or click Send File to select a specific file to send.

   When you download your project to the device, new project files automatically and immediately replace old ones, even while the project is running. As such, you may choose to stop the project on the device (by clicking Stop) before you download files, to make sure the project stops as expected and does not cause a disruption. You are not required to stop the project, however; if it is robust enough to handle changes while running, you can download new files at any time.

   The Only newer files option controls which project files are downloaded:

   • If this option is selected, only newer files — that is, files that have changed since the last time the project was downloaded to the device — will be downloaded. This can reduce the total time needed to download.

   • If this option is cleared, all of the project files will be downloaded, overwriting the existing files on the device.

   The Keep user files option controls which project files are removed or replaced on the target stations.

   • For a Linux target station, if this option is not selected: all files in the <project> directory and in its subdirectories are removed, including any linked files, but no subdirectories are removed. For a Windows target station, if this option is not selected: all files in the <project> directory subdirectories are removed, but directories and files in the root <project> directory are not removed.

   • For a Linux or Windows target station: if this option is selected, the following files are kept:

     • all files in the <project>/Hst and <project>/Alarm directories

     • all user-created files and directories in the <project> directory

     All non-project files in the Config, Database, Screen, Symbol, and Web subdirectories of the <project> directory are removed.

     Note: No directories are removed; only files are removed.

7. If you have enabled Data Protection in your project settings but not on the target device, you will be asked if you want to enable it on the target device. Click Yes, and then when prompted, enter the Data Protection password. For more information, see Enable Data Protection to encrypt sensitive information. If you do not enable Data Protection on the target device now, you must do so later in Remote Agent on the device itself before you run the project.

The project is downloaded to the target device. If the download is interrupted, you will be asked if you want to continue, and if you do, you will also be advised that the project might not run properly after it is downloaded.

Please note that once you have configured the Remote Management settings, you can click Download on the Home tab of the ribbon to send new project files at any time without opening this dialog box.

You can also compress the project files to make them download more quickly over a slow network connection. To do this, select the Enable File Compression check box in the Communication tab of the Project Settings dialog box.