[charlie_m]

Hi, I'm helping a buddy install ISTA, but I have a few questions:

* What's the difference between ISTA standalone and ISTA Rheingold? ISTA(D) is for 'diagnostics' and ISTA(P) is for programming *and* diagnostics (right?)

* During install of ISTA standalone, he un-ticked the 'programming' option, when choosing what to install to save disk space. That disables programming (obviously) but does it also disable all car communication (ie retrieving VO, scanning for codes, etc)?

* I understand that ISTA will only program F-series and higher. Is that right? Will ISTA communicate with modules in the E9x series? If so, which interface should he use, K+DCan or ICOM?

Finally, not a question so much as noting something we ran into: running the ista standalone installer, either as a user or admistrator, resulted in a pop-up error window to the effect of 'drive letter or UNC path not available'. There was no option presented during the install setup to *choose* a location, so I'm not sure where it was trying to install that caused the problem. In any case, the installation failed at that point.

The solution for that, I found was to:
* start up a command prompt (I did it as adminstrator, may not be needed)
* navigate to the folder with the installation executable
* Execute the installation executable with an argument that specifies the install location (ie, ista_standalone_installer_4.30.xx /DIR="C:\ISTA_4.30"). If you run the installer executable with '/HELP' as the argument, you will see other options, but generally I don't think you should mess with those. Maybe /LOG, if you want to create a log of the installation process.

[charlie_m]

Maybe it's frowned upon to answer your own post, but I found this on another site; is this close to being right?

Dealership Level Software

3rd Generation

ISTA (Integrated Service Technical Application) - The dealership system used to diagnose and program cars, it's made up of many smaller parts outlined below.
ISTA/D (Integrated Service Technical Application - Diagnostics) - The diagnostics part of ISTA, used to perform diagnostics and service functions
ISTA/P (Integrated Service Technical Application - Programming) - The programming/coding part of ISTA, used to perform programming/coding of control units
ISID (Integrated Service Information Display) - Tablet-like computer which runs the ISTA/D application and is the gateway to the ISTA/P client application
ISSS (Integrated Service Software Station) - Server system (actually a desktop running as a server) which houses the ISTA/P server application and is responsible for programming and coding. It's controlled via the ISTA/P client application on the ISID.
ISIS (Integrated Service Information Server) - Server system which controls all other ISTA applications/hardware, it coordinates communication between all the parts of the ISTA system and is responsible for management of all ISTA software/hardware in the dealership network. Usually two are found at a dealership in a cluster configuration.
ISPS (Integrated Service Programming Server) - Successor to the ISSS starting with ISPI 3.0, BMW decided to make one of the ISIS servers a dedicated programming server since they saw no value with dual ISIS systems. Higher capacity than an ISSS system and will eventually phase out all ISSS systems in the future.
ISPI (Integrated Service Process Initiative) - Basically service packs to the ISTA infrastructure, currently at ISPI version 3.0.
ISAP (Integrated Service Access Point) - Managed wireless access point used by ICOM, ISID, IMIB systems to connect to the dealership network via wireless
IMIB (Integrated Measurement Interface Box) - Wireless system used to perform various measurements components of a vehicle, voltage, resistance, computerized oscilloscope.
ICOM (Integration Communication Optical Module) - ICOM is a communication device and constitutes the diagnostic interface to the vehicle. It is connected to the vehicle and can be linked to an ISID via a connection manager. Thus ISID can communicate with the vehicle, e.g. for automatic vehicle identification or for executing test programs.

[3PedalJake]

AFAIK

INPA: Factory component level testing software. Very granular level testing abilities but opaque and mostly in German.

ISTA-D: Dealership level service software, will diagnose E9x over K-DCAN, but you need ISTA-P to program.

F,G,K and I series can be diagnosed and programmed in ISTA-D after installing BLP_xxx.7z and SDP_xxx.7z packages. I believe those models have to be programmed with ICOM (no experience with them).