If you encounter issues such as
- installation of a "new" installation of the FDI IDE is taking a long time (15+ minutes)
- not possible to build an FDI Package with a recently installed FDI IDE
- FDI Package built with an FDI IDE cannot be imported into RRTE
It is possible that the installation is corrupted.
To repair a corrupt or faulty installation, (or to ensure you are able to cleanly install on the first try) follow these steps, which are found in the FDI IDE User Guide, page 31, section 2.3.4. These include steps to help with problems related to OPC UA LDS (OPC UA LocalDiscoveryServer). 1. In the Windows Control Panel, make sure the Folder\View\Advanced Settings has “Show hidden files, folders, and drives” selected. In Windows 7, this is under ‘Control Panel\Folder Options’. In Windows 10, this is under ‘Control Panel\File Explorer Options’. 2. Uninstall the ‘FDI Package IDE’ via the normal Microsoft Windows ‘Control Panel\Programs and Features’ mechanism. 3. Uninstall the ‘FDI Package IDE Prerequisites’ via the normal Microsoft Windows ‘Control Panel\Programs and Features’ mechanism. (This does not actually remove the prerequisites that were installed, it simply removes the entry for ‘FDI Package IDE Prerequisites’ from the list of installed programs). 4 Uninstall the 'OPC UA Local Discovery Server 1.04' via the normal Microsoft Windows 'Control Panel\Programs and Features' mechanism. You will have to tell the uninstaller to automatically close the two running services by choosing "ok" shortly after the uninstall begins. 5. Browse to the C:\ProgramData\ folder. If a folder named ‘FDI’ still exists, right-click on it and choose to delete the folder. If a folder exists named 'HartIPCommunicationServer', right-click on it and choose to delete the folder. If a folder named 'OPC Foundation' still exists, right-click on it and choose to delete the folder. 6. Browse to the C:\Program Files(x86)\ folder. If a folder named ‘FDI’ still exists, right-click on it and choose to delete the folder. 7.Browse to the C:\users\YOUR_NAME or YOUR_NAME.DOMAIN\folder (or otherwise, the name of the logged on user that was the admin that installed the previous FDI IDE build.) 7a. Open the 'AppData' folder and search for a folder named 'FDI'. Right-click on the folder and choose to delete it. 7b. If a folder named 'FieldComm_Group,_Inc' exists, right-click on it and choose to delete it. 7c. Open the 'Documents' folder. If a folder named ‘FDI’ still exists back up any source files you may have in it, then right-click on the ‘FDI’ folder and choose to delete it. REBOOT the computer. 8. Run the FDI Package IDE Prerequisites installer for the version of the FDI Package IDE you wish to install. For good measure, right-click on it and select "Run as Administrator" if you have that ability. REBOOT the computer. 9. Run the FDI Package IDE installer for the version of the FDI Package IDE you wish to install. For good measure, right-click on it and select "Run as Administrator" if you have that ability. Follow the steps in section 2.3.2 of the user guide. Step 9 took approximately 3 minutes from beginning until the installer wanted to reboot the computer using FDI IDE 1.6.0.1. The test computer was a Dell Precision model running Windows 10 Pro 21H1. REBOOT the computer one more time.
Two additional items of note. 1. The steps listed above assume the installer is the administrator of the PC. If you are not the machine administrator, you will encounter problems with the steps listed. 2. If the previous installation was installed by a different user (under a different Windows logon) you will not be able to uninstall it because you will not have permissions to remove the files in that user's "Documents" folder. Always uninstall from the user account where the previous installation was made. 3. If you want to change the installation of record to a different user account on the same PC, completely uninstall and clean it out of the first account, then log off, reboot, and then logon as the other user where you want to install the new build. This will help ensure a clean installation and operation.