For security reasons, each person that is a user of a Windows platform, has their own user home. This means that each
Supervisor platform has at least two user home locations:
Workbench User Home (for people), and a platform daemon User Home (for the daemon server processes).
The
Supervisor engineering workstation that is licensed to run a station has a daemon User Home. The daemon is a server process and represents
a (non-human) user that manages the
Supervisor’s running station. The
Supervisor’s daemon User Home contains daemon-specific configuration information. The actual location of the
Supervisor’s daemon user home is C:\ProgramData\Niagara4.x\<brand>. The platform daemon is installed to this location and started from this location as a Windows service.
In
Niagara, the installation wizard provides the default daemon User Home location, which you can change if you wish. In the step to
select the daemon User Home location you have the option to either accept the default location or specify an a different location.
CAUTION: The daemon and
Workbench User Homes are intended to be installed in distinctly separate locations. This separation of homes is for security reasons
but it also prevents certain unintended results. For example, when the two homes are installed in the same location the Station Copier becomes unavailable, and you will not be able to make a portable copy of the station.
In addition to this daemon User Home, a Windows host has a separate
Workbench User Home for each person (operator, administrator) who logs in with credentials to a Windows-based platform licensed for
Workbench, meaning a
Supervisor or engineering workstation. Any given PC or workstation has at least one, and may contain multiple
Workbench User Homes.
Each person’s
Workbench User Home is available in the Nav tree as a node under and contains unique configuration information that is not shared. This is where to find any new
Workbench station, as well as any remote station backups, templates and other configuration files. The actual location of each person’s
User Home is in the Niagara4.x folder under your Windows User account.
To see both types of User Homes on the same view, open a local platform connection to your
Supervisor PC, expand My File System in the Nav tree, and double-click on the Platform Administration view.
Figure 5. Local platform connection to a Supervisor station with
Workbench and daemon User Homes
- Identifies the
Workbench User Home.
- Identifies the daemon User Home.
When you first install
Niagara 4 on your PC and start the daemon (by choosing the install option Install and Start Platform Daemon on installation), the installation program creates this daemon User Home (Niagara4.0 folder). Initially, it contains an empty stations sub-folder, until you copy a station to it.
Figure 6. Example of a daemon User Home location in Windows Explorer
You can do this station copy in different ways. In
Niagara 4, you can let the New Station wizard initiate this copy from its last Finish step. Or, as needed, you can manually open a local platform connection and
use the Station Copier.
The actual location of each user’s home folder is under that user’s personal Windows account. Some example
Workbench user home locations are:
C:\Users\John\Niagara4.x\<brand>
C:\Users\Mike\Niagara4.x\<brand>
where “John” and “Mike” are separate Windows user accounts. The first time a Windows user starts
Workbench, the system automatically creates that user’s unique User Home folder.
The person that installs
Niagara 4 on a PC acquires the first such User Home. If no other Windows users log on to that PC, this may be the only
Workbench User Home on the platform. However, if another person logs on to Windows on that computer and starts
Workbench, that user also acquires their own
Workbench User Home.
The following figure shows an example
Workbench user home location in Windows Explorer.
Figure 7. Example of an automatically-created
Workbench User Home in Windows Explorer
