Application builds with new and old VISA drivers

[Ideal]

I create test applications with Labview which get installed on several different computers. I have run into a problem with applications I have built with different versions of Labview and VISA drivers. I have one application built with Labview 8.6 and VISA 4.4.1 and another application build with Labview 2010 and VISA 5.0.3. If the 2010 application was installed on a machine before the 8.6 app was, I am then not able to install the 8.6 application because of the older VISA driver. The installer does not allow the installation to finish if it detects a newer version of VISA driver. Is there a reason for this? I know if I installed the 8.6 app first and then the 2010 app, everything would be ok. But I want it to work the other way around. The operating system is Windows XP. I create all my installers to include the VISA driver in case the machine they will be installed on does not have a driver already installer. I know using the latest drivers is the best, but how can I prevent it from interfering with older builds?

[JordanG · Accepted solution]

Good morning,

This behavior is expected as you cannot have 2 versions of the VISA driver installed and LabVIEW will also reference the most recent driver. This explains why going from 8.6 to 2010 works, but 2010 to 8.6 won't. There are a few ways to resolve this issue. Take a look at this article:

NI-VISA and LabVIEW Version Compatibility for Windows

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/E7C93038169B6E7686257847004B8B9C?OpenDocument

Since the latest driver 5.0.3 is compatible with both LabVIEW 2010 and 8.6, the easiest solution would be to rebuild the 8.6 installer and include the latest driver instead of VISA 4.4.1. This would allow you to run both installers without hassle as they would be referencing the same VISA driver version. The other, less ideal option would be to uninstall the 5.0.3 driver and then run the 8.6 installer.

My suggestion would be to always include the newest VISA driver in your installers (adhering to the compatibilty document, of course).

Jordan G.