Connecting to a networked instrument or to the localhost is established via the system menu. If connecting to an instrument, the instrument must first be connected to the network via Ethernet or WiFi and the IP address of the instrument must be known.

The localhost setting provides a simulated connection to the instrument hardware, but does not provide simulated data. When an instrument is not connected and the MG362x1A software instead connects with the localhost, most of the menus are available and operate the same as they do on the instrument, but there are some differences as discussed in the following sections. In order to analyze measurement data, this data must first be acquired using instrument hardware and then saved locally to the PC or transferred to the PC from instrument storage at a later time.

Since most of the setup parameters are available, you can use the PC software to create measurement setup files (.stp) for later use on the instrument; however, when recalling and analyzing measurement data, changing settings that would affect the data acquisition may cause the recalled data to be removed from the display. For example, you can change amplitude parameters, but you cannot change frequency parameters such as start/stop, span, and bandwidth parameters since there would be no data associated with those changed parameters. You can apply measurement features to the saved measurement data such as markers and limit lines and you can change many measurement and view settings. Opening a .fmxxxx measurement file when connected to the localhost will work basically the same as recalling a measurement on an instrument.