New 2026 Q1 Feature: Notification of Externally Changed Files

[Christina_R]

Notification of Externally Changed Files

When using Git for source code control, it’s common to change branches, which swaps out files on disk for different versions. With LabVIEW 2025 Q3 and earlier, it’s good practice to close your project before doing external file operations like branch changes.

LabVIEW 2026 Q1 introduces a dialog which notifies you when open files open have changed on disk, along with a quick way to reload your project.

The Externally Changed Files List will open automatically when LabVIEW detects that open files have changed on disk. You can also open the dialog from the View menu.  

Known Issues:

1. When you close your project with the Externally Changed Files List open, the dialog doesn’t close automatically. Furthermore, if you then close the dialog, LabVIEW is still running, but with no open windows. To recover from this state, you can open a VI from File Explorer or use Task Manager to end the LabVIEW process.
2. If you have VIs running when you click the Reload Project button, LabVIEW will abort your VIs without a confirmation dialog.