How to manually install VISA serial components

[JStewart]

Hi,

I have a client who's using serial I/O on a Windows XP Embedded system. The problem is that the VISA installer and the installers generated using BuildApplication don't work under Windows XP, most probably because the part of the OS that they require is missing.

My question is: is there any way to manually install the .DLLs and registry entries required for basic VISA serial I/O?

[LoganS]

I am not aware of any way to do that, but another possibilty may be to install the VISA runtime engine on the target computer. With the LabVIEW and NI-VISA runtime engines installed on a computer, you should be able to deploy an application built with LabVIEW and NI-VISA on a computer that does not actually have LabVIEW or NI-VISA.

Hope this helps!

-Logan S.

[Nickos]

Hi JStewart,

Yes - looks like I am not the only one with the same problem.

I have a reasonably large version of windows XPE running on a computer that we wish to use for embedded applications. I am yet to find an application that I am not able to install on the system, with the exception of the Labview Visa Drivers. In particular all I need is the VISA serial drivers.

With regards to the previous response that was posted to you. I am able to install the LabView runtime without fault. In fact I have developed and deployed a labview application without a single problem. However when I want to get serial comms up and running I need the serial driver. The VISA driver CD refuses to install correctly and asks for disk 1 when disk1 is present.

Next I have built the application using the build windows installer option in the build process. Under the advanced options (in 7.1 at least) you are able to include the serial drivers. I have used this installation file on the windows XP embedded system and get to the last stage of the installation process and am asked again for disk 'name of my installation'.

If there is anyone from NI listening please take note as this is a major oversight. The XP embedded operating system is able to run all applications I have placed on it to date yet the NI VISA installer is falling over. Since we only require basic comm ports if anyone is aware of how to set this up it would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[JoshuaP]

To my knowledge VISA was never tested on XPE, because NI-VISA has never supported XPE. However, I'll look into the issue a little more and see if there is some kind of work around that we can do. I would suggest you file a product suggestion if you think that it would be nice to officially add support for XPE to NI-VISA.

Josh Prewitt
National Instruments

[Nickos]

I found that if you use the separate VISA drivers downloadable from the NI websight there is no problem. Using the drivers CD from the NI box or the installer that is contained within an application build will fail however.

Not that I only installed the serial component and no others.