Opening and activating the existing configuration

To activate an existing TwinCAT configuration, three steps are performed: A DTE instance is created, the solution is opened, and then ActivateConfiguration and StartRestartTwinCAT are called on the ITcSysManager object.

The ITcSysManager object is obtained from the first project in the solution. The ProgID determines which version of Visual Studio is launched. References to “Microsoft Developer Environment” and “Beckhoff TwinCAT XAE Base” must be added to the project.

Type t = System.Type.GetTypeFromProgID("VisualStudio.DTE.17.0");
EnvDTE.DTE dte = (EnvDTE.DTE)System.Activator.CreateInstance(t);
dte.SuppressUI = false;
dte.MainWindow.Visible = true;

EnvDTE.Solution sol = dte.Solution;
sol.Open(@"C:\Temp\SolutionFolder\MySolution1\MySolution1.sln");

EnvDTE.Project pro = sol.Projects.Item(1);
ITcSysManager sysMan = pro.Object;

sysMan.ActivateConfiguration();
sysMan.StartRestartTwinCAT();

$prjDir = "C:\tmp\TestSolution\"
$prjName = "TestSolution.sln"
$prjPath = $prjDir += $prjName
$dte = new-object -com VisualStudio.DTE.17.0
$dte.SuppressUI = $false
$dte.MainWindow.Visible = $true

$sln = $dte.Solution
$sln.Open($prjPath)

$project = $sln.Projects.Item(1)
$systemManager = $project.Object

$systemManager.ActivateConfiguration()
$systemManager.StartRestartTwinCAT()