It would be nice that if someone saved an VI with an earlier LabVIEW version (I.E. LV2013) and I open it with say LV2017, it would 'save' as the opened version and not automatically convert to my version (LV2017) and overwrite the previous file such that others can no longer access it.
Maybe this could be done with a pop-up window similar to when attempting to open a vi saved with a later version. Request the user to determine if they wish to save with the previous version or new version. Another option might be during the save feature would be to mention that it is attempting to save an earlier version file to the current version and request user approval. I spend way too much time using the save as previous for other applications on different machines. Additionally, it can also inform the user when a save to the earlier version cannot be performed due to new functionality that is not compatible with the later LabVIEW versions.
Help the Community (and future reviewers) by marking posts as follows:
If it helped - KUDOS
If it answers the issue - SOLUTION
Declined for reasons listed in AristosQueue's reply:
"LabVIEW R&D has evaluated this idea in the past. LabVIEW NXG may move to this system in the future -- they have laid some groundwork to possibly enable that when they reach more stable epochs. It is not an option for LabVIEW 20xx. We lack the infrastructure for tracking individual feature usage in order to determine what the minimum version would be for a given VI/library, and building that is seen as cost prohibitive... which is one of the reasons NI chose to create LabVIEW NXG.
Because this idea is a non-starter for LabVIEW 20xx, I am going to recommend we decline this idea now. LabVIEW NXG will act on it if it is technically feasible at some point in the future, but it is not anything where more kudos would encourage any different action. It is a technical challenge that will either work someday or not."