Windows cannot load the installer for GPIB

[SteveL]

I recently completely uninstalled NI Developer Suite so that I could create a minimal GPIB/VISA environment for a specific project. When I tried to re-install NI-488.2 I got the error "Windows cannot load the installer for GPIB" and the installation fails. I have tried two different GPIB cards, a PCI-GPIB and a PCI-GPIB+, with the same result. The card is listed in Device Manager with the yellow exclamation mark but when I try to open the properties page I get the same error as descibed above. My PC is a Dell Optiplex 745 with Windows XP SP2. Any help would be much appreciated.

[SteveL]

Just an update in the hope of jogging someone's memory. I have tried various suggestions from other sources but without success. I suspect the problem lies within Windows, rather than the NI software, but I was hoping somone here may have experienced the same problem. Reinstalling XP is my last, but highly undesirable, option so I'll cluctch at any straws offered!

Cheers, Steve

[Steven_T]

Hello Steve,

I'm unsure of how you are trying to install NI-488.2.

What version of NI-488.2 are you attempting to install?  Are you running the setup.exe that comes with the NI-488.2 CD or is it part of the driver CD or DVD (if so, which version)?

If you run the setup.exe through the command line, (setup.exe /?) you should see that one of the options is to create a log file.  This log and a screenshot of the error would be helpful in figuring out what is wrong.

Thanks,

Steven T.

[SteveL]

Hello Steven,

I'm guessing you may be the Steven T with whom I was dealing recently on beta testing. If so, it is quite a coincidence as you will see.

Having uninstalled Developer Suite (Feb 2009) completely, I was trying to install NI-488.2 v2.6 from a downloaded distributable in order to provide a test environment for a new app. I had tried everything I could think of to fix the problem with no success until today when I tried updating to the new v2.7 release (there's the coincidence!). The update was successful and I suddenly had working GPIB again. Yipee! However, the story doesn't end there.

I'm working with an instrument that has both GPIB and Ethernet control capability. In MAX, GPIB was working fine, but when I tried to establish a TCP/IP connection through VISA the VISA Interactive Panel would not run because it "could not find the CVI Runtime Engine". As you may know the Feb 2009 Developer Suite distribution includes LabWindows/CVI v9 and it seems that the v9 CVI RTE was still installed and appears to be incompatible with MAX v4.5. In the end, I had to manually remove CVI RTE v9 and re-install v8.5.1 from the NI-488.2 v2.7 distribution and now everything works. I hope that the information about this apparent compatibility issue will be useful to you.

If you need any more details, please let me know.

Steve L

[Steven_T]

Hello again Steve,

Yes, I was your point of contact for the recent beta process!  Thanks again for your efforts with testing our new driver and hardware!

I am sending this information to the VISA support team.  They would be better able to figure out why the correct version of the CVI RTE did not get installed (and possibly why it fails).  They will be looking into it and may respond by requesting more information.  If you have any questions, please let me know.

Thanks for reporting this to us.

Steven T.