Using IVI Driver Generator LabView 8.6 to save LV Drivers for previous versions

[sorinxxxx]

Hi Nathan

So looks that you guys did find the root cause of this problem. This finding will improve the quality of the generator tool trough our feedback. There were two keywords that must be avoided one is Vi and the other ResourceName.

If for ResourceName I could see an easy fix by changing the name to something else for the Vi keyword that is more difficult and impractical to change as all functions have a parameter called <<ViSession Vi>>. I would expect more side effects from this restriction on Vi name from other NI and third-party tool that is using Vi as a parameter name and making this a special keyword not usable on the user side may be too late to change or avoid in my opinion.

Anyway thanks for your steady hand and follow-up on this issue

Cheers!

Sorin Lazarescu

[HeatherTcore]

Hello,

Thank you for the feedback on the nomenclature. Your suggestion indeed helped us generate PNP LV drivers without issues. However, we now have another issue. We are using LV 8.6 and are only able to save for previous versions up to 8.0.

Some of our customers are even using LV 6.0 and therefore we would really like the ability to provide our instrument drivers for major stable releases in the 6.0 and 7.0 generation. Can you please guide us on how we can do this through LV 8.6?

Thank you,

Heather

[Dennis_Knutson]

This explains which versions of LabVIEW you need save to something earlier. So, for example, to save to 7.1, this can only be done with version 8.0. To save to version 7.0, you must have version 7.1, etc.

[sorinxxxx]

Hi Dennis

This is good and currently we have LabVIEW version 8.6 that let us save down to 8.0.

Then after I save to 8.0 I need a LabVIEW 8.0 version to do some testing.

Next step would be then lower that to LabVIEW 7.1 in the same way for our customers to use our VIs in lower LabVIEW versions.

How could we get the LabVIEW 8.0 to install when we have 8.6.

On the NI site I could not see any link that let me install a previous version when I have a higher version.

We have a license and serial number for 8.6 but how we get 8.0 and could we use this license or need another one?

Thanks

Sorin

[Justin_E]

Hi Sorin,

You'll need a distribution of LabVIEW 8.0 in order to open that and save for a previous version. You may want to get in contact with your local sales contact to see if you can obtain an earlier version of LabVIEW (find your contact here : http://www.ni.com/domestic_sales/ )

Alternatively, you could attach a zip file of your VIs, and myself or someone else on the forums could save back to LabVIEW 7.1 for you

[sorinxxxx]

Hi Justin

I just send an email explaining our issue to our local NI representative, Nicola Ricciardi, and we are waiting for his response. 

Thanks

Sorin

[Dennis_Knutson]

You might be going about this backwards. Unless I'm missing something, you have an IVI-C driver. All of these old versions of LabVIEW included a tool to create a LabVIEW driver from an IVI-C driver and so all you have to make available is the original IVI-C driver. As far back as I can remember, that was the primary (and often sole) method that the "big" instrument vendors did.

[sorinxxxx]

Hi Dennis

There are few issues with the tool itself that could work only from LabVIEW 7.1 and up.

1. The users having lower versions than 7.1 could not ues the NI converter from IVI-C to VI.

2. The tool has few glitches that will be documented later by NI where few reserved keywords as ResourceName and Vi could not be used. In this case we hav eto go inside the source header file of our IVI-C driver change these reserved keywords to neutral names and saved these header files.

3. Some of the VI created have similar names which in the IVI-COM interface is no issue as the interface root is different as Application->GetRegister and System->GetRegister end up after using the tool as Get Register.vi and Get Register 1.vi whicj become hard for us or user where that is coming from or what register is really using.

Fortunately the NI Wizard has an advanced option that let the user to edit the name of VI created by the tool and we and manually I have to change the name of VI as Application Get Register.vi and System Get Register.vi

4. Before sending the VI out we prefer to test them inside on the real system to be sure that they are working

5. User is happy to get a clean VI out of box alreadu tested and working directly from us instead of dealling with all these details as above

Thanks for your input

Sorin

[Dennis_Knutson]

I used the converter as least as far back as 6.0 and never had a problem with converting IVI-C drivers. Since you don't have LabVIEW 6.0 or the converter for it, how can you say it will not work? The converter you are using right now is NOT the same thing.

All I am saying is that all of these old versions of LabVIEW are long obsolete and you are sure to have some problems getting them all. You might want to work on a backup plan.

[sorinxxxx]

Hi Dennis

Yes the LabVIEW Import CVI Driver Wizard Tool that I have installed from NI is an add-on tool that is asking for LabVIEW 7.1 or higher.

We currently have LabVIEW 7.0 and I have seen that this version has the same feature in the Tool menu under Import CVI driver.

But is good for us to have also LabVIEW 7.1 installed and to do VI testing on this version before the customer get them.

Thanks

Sorin