Step 1 - Instal TIA Portal

TIA Portal (Totally Integrated Automation Portal) is the Siemen’s environment holding several tools like :

• Step 7 (S7) for programming PLCs
• WinCC for programming HMI and SCADA systems
• S7-PLCSIM for simulating PLCs on your computer, essentially to test your codes directly on its basic interface, or on simulation softwares like FactoryIO

There are several version available for testing, but each of them have a trial period of only 21 days. So, if you start your training from v16 to v21, you have a total of 126 days - which is more than enough to learn it and do some little projects. Hereafter the links to each of those versions :

• SIMATIC STEP 7 incl. Safety and WinCC V16 TRIAL Download link
• SIMATIC STEP 7 incl. Safety, S7-PLCSIM and WinCC V17 TRIAL Download link
• SIMATIC STEP 7 incl. Safety, S7-PLCSIM and WinCC V18 TRIAL Download link
• SIMATIC STEP 7 inkl. Safety, S7-PLCSIM and WinCC V19 TRIAL Download link
• SIMATIC STEP 7 incl. Safety, S7-PLCSIM and WinCC V20 TRIAL Download link
• SIMATIC STEP 7 incl. Safety, S7-PLCSIM and WinCC V21 TRIAL Download link

In each of those pages, look for the 2 following DVDs (you will need to register on Siemens’ “mySiePortal - it can take up to 5 days to get verified):

• Under: TRIAL Download STEP 7 Basic/Professional, STEP 7 Safety Basic/Advanced and WinCC Basic/Comfort/Advanced and WinCC Unified
  • Get : DVD 1 Setup with STEP 7 Basic / Prof. | STEP 7 Safety Basic / Advanced | WinCC Basic / Comfort / Advanced / Unified Engineering
• Under : TRIAL Download S7-PLCSIM 
  • Get : DVD 1 Setup | STEP 7 PLCSIM

Install them on your computer. It requires several restarts of your computer.

Step 2 - Activating a trial licence

Now that TIA portal is installed, you need another version of the “Automation License Manager” than the one installed by default. You need the version 6.2 available on the following page :

• Software for the authorization and licensing of SIMATIC products. (ALM) there : link
  • look for : “Automation License Manager V6.2”

Congratulation, you are now ready to go 👏 !