nidevmon.exe failed to initialize (solved after lots of pain)

[kzietlow]

Long story, I'm trying to make it short.

I migrated to a new computer and used PCMover to move all my settings and programs to the new machine.

While it looked all great, most programs detected a hardware change and wanted to be reinstalled or relicensed.

I had LabVIEW 8.6 on the old computer and it actually worked OK. However NI-488 would not work.

After unsuccessfully trying to reinstall it I decided to completely uninstall all NI software and do a fresh install from the DVDs.

LabVIEW works, but after booting I get the "nvdevmon.exe failed to initialize" error. I also cannot run it or any other programfrom the NI-488.2 folder without errors other than Interactive control which is DOS based.

I tried installing both LV8.6 and LV2009, each time doing a complete uninstall and always get the same error. Also, when I plug in my GPIB-USB-HS it goes through the install but then fails with Code 39.

I tried to remove leftovers from previous installs in the registry, but it appears that there are things that survive the complete uninstall using add/remove programs. I know this since Labview remembers my VIs and projects and shows them to me in the welcome screen even after I completely removed it and reinstalled it.

So my guess is that somehow there is something left on the system that prevents NI-488.2 to reinstall properly.

How do I fix this? I already wasted a lot of time on this...

I would like to know all the places (registry keys, ini files, folders hidden or otherwise) where the NI software puts stuff so I can wipe it and do a true clean install.

Thanks in advance for any help in getting this fixed.

Klaus

[kzietlow]

So, after doing another uninstall of all NI sw I spend a good three hours going through my system to remove everything that the uninstaller did not remove. There are a lot of registry keys and settings in the various documents and settings folders, etc, etc, etc... Alll in all I must have removed stuff from at least twenty different places!

I then installed just the NI-488.2 stuff (saving me the extra 45 minutes for the LV install) and now the GPIB-USB-HS works fine.

I then also re-installed LV2009 (the NI license server must by now be thinking that I'm running some massive cloning operation here...) and it also works.

So, all in all, my system is working again and I am back to where I was with my old PC. Yeah...

Of course it took a whole weekend that I didn't get to spend with my kids.

It would be really nice if NI could provide a tool that wipes all traces of previous installs. This should be pretty easy for you guys to do, as you presumably know all the locations where your installers put stuff to begin with. If I had had that tool my problem would have taken only one re-install to fix.

Klaus

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

klaus:

They have a utility already called msiblast. I link to the file is contained in this thread (and many others too)

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&message.id=243212&query.id=1049190#M243212

-AK2DM

[kzietlow]

Thanks AK2DM,

I guess I should have looked for this sooner.

It would be nice to have this as an option for the uninstaller, though.

Rather than having to run it as a separate exe which many IT departments won't allow...

Klaus

[Mr.F]

Hi,

Glad to see that you were able to resolve this since I looked at this earlier today. I checked on that forum that you had posted on earlier and that customer had a conflict with the National Instruments driver and part of the Agilent I/O libraries. It doesn’t appear to be related to your situation, however. Glad your back up and running!