New (To Us) Mazak w/ Embedded Windows XP - Log On Issues / Questions

Hello,

I am the IT associate for a local CNC shop that is primarily Mazaks. We have roughly 50 machines. Recently, we purchased a new (to us) Mazak Quick Turn (Mazak Quick Turn Nexus 200-II, Model # QTN 200-II) that has embedded Windows XP. This is the first machine we've owned like this and we are having some growing pains with it.

It seems that the embedded software in the machine will NOT work unless the logged on user is "administrator". (Local or Domain) Logging on under any other name causes the software to crash and refuse to cooperate. We store all of our programs in a network share. When logged on as local admin to the machine, it does not have network access and cannot copy it's programs. However, when logged on as domain admin, it works just fine.

However, this is obviously a huge security hole and is not acceptable. We cannot have machines logged on as the full domain administrator, but that seems to be the only way we can access the network in order to pull the programs. Currently, I have just been going out on the floor and logging on as domain admin when the guys needed to pull a new batch of programs, then rebooting the machine and logging on as local admin once they had their programs downloaded.

I really feel like there has to be a better way to do this. Here are some things we've tried or considered already that did not / will not work:

* Created a "ShopAdmin" account with limited domain rights, brings up the issue above with the software in the machine not working.
* Considered using an "autologon" feature, but it would still need to log on as domain admin in order to get the programs.
* Used our usual "shop" logon, but gave local admin rights on the Mazak.

Can anyone provide any insight into how other shops handle this issue? Is something wrong with our machine? It seems like very poor design to me if it is intended to ONLY be able to run under an "administrator" account.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or help, I really appreciate it. This one really has us scratching our heads.

Not sure how to deal with the admin rights.. But. instead of having you come out to machine, swap users and shut down and restart. Just use a USB stick to transfer programs from computer to this machine if its the only one.

Slothgsr said:

Not sure how to deal with the admin rights.. But. instead of having you come out to machine, swap users and shut down and restart. Just use a USB stick to transfer programs from computer to this machine if its the only one.

Click to expand...

That's a good idea. I will look into this. Yes, this is our only machine like this, but it wouldn't surprise me if we got more over time.

Thanks for the input!

First place I would look for answer is a phone call to Mazak support.

I have never used a network card in a Mazak so I obviously don't know the answer . . . but this sounds like a network setup problem, not really a machine control problem. Unless someone has turned the 'setup' key the wrong way?

Well, since it almost impossible to get different variants of windows to talk to each other properly on a network, and I doubt you are using XP elsewhere, I wonder if you can use this to your advantage.

Try setting that machine with zero permissions on other machines.

You will not be able to pull programs at the machine but ought to be able to push them over from the office machine. hell I have to deal with that all the time

I wonder if there are settings in the router that might be useful...or if you could get it to connect wirelessly with limited permissions

You really need to call Mazak Tech support and go over this, because playing around with the windows side of the control not knowing what you're doing can break a lot of stuff. How are you trying to load programs in? With the "Data I/O" screen or directly from windows file explorer? On Data I/O you can select a mapped network location under the HD and point to a folder on your server to send and receive files from. That is the easiest way.

Mazak Southeast phone number is:
(678) 985-4800

The one way I used to transfer wireless, was. I put a wireless usb adapter in machine and connected to network. I had a shared folder on my desktop that i could see on the machine if i went to file explorer. On PC, I would copy the program over to the shared folder. then on machine.. I would use file explorer to move that program over to a folder where i could load it into machine using the data I/O screen. I'm not sure how secure this method is.. but it worked. We ended up updating our router to WPA2 and since then I couldn't connect machine to netowrk so i went back to just using USB thumb drive. Its not much of a hassle since computer is right next to machine.