Continued disappointment with LabVIEW

[AEI_JR]

I just had to post a mild rant about the current state of NI and LabVIEW software.  In the 26+ years I've been a LabVIEW programmer, I have never had so many problems just getting LabVIEW to install.  Multiple failures where I'm prompted to try again, try again, try again, or most recently, when every time I install LabVIEW, my Windows installation is corrupted to the point where I have to completely reinstall Windows.

The only workable advice I've seen in these instances is to reduce the software packages I'm installing so that I have to go through multiple sessions of install, reboot, login, launch PM, select more software, install, repeat.

Do better, NI.

[crossrulz]

I have had horrible problems with the "online" install and/or install straight from NIPM. I have had very few issues installing from the Offline Installers. So I do think network connectivity during installation is one of the problems.

[Bob_Schor]

In the first three years of NIPM (i.e. LabVIEW 2016, 2017, and 2018), the only time I had to do a Windows reinstall (Windows 10 64-bit) was when I "over-aggressively" tried to uninstall LabVIEW (by deleting NI files and folders left behind after using Control Panel's "Programs and Features" option to uninstall NI Software, then NIPM, or, more likely to be fatal, running RegEdit after 3-4 Control Panel passes.  

However, I have not (yet) tried to install LabVIEW 2026, though I have successfully installed (or upgraded) both LabVIEW 2024 64-bit and LabVIEW 2025 64-bit (I believe mostly Q3).  My usual install includes LabVIEW RealTime, LabVIEW Vision, DAQmx, and a minimal set of support routines (the third step of an NIPM install selection).  I've almost always used the "online" method with no trouble -- an exception was an upgrade on a colleague's machine to free it from an as-yet-unknown and un-understood "Security flag" that neither I nor the campus Security Gurus could understand, but which seemed to go away when we tried the Offline install method.  That was a pain!

Bob Schor

[AEI_JR]

Three times I attempted to install LabVIEW 2021 SP3 with a new laptop.  Every time it resulted in an unrecoverable BSOD upon reboot.  I finally installed v2023.  I've never experienced this before.  I don't think it was related to network connectivity errors - I'm hardline connected and our hardline is very reliable.  It was too repeatable to be an anomaly.  I've experienced errors with LabVIEW not fully installing and found workarounds that require deselecting certain items when setting up install, and these issues seem to persist across versions and years.  This is what I find most disappointing - that NI must be aware of them but either incapable or unmotivated to correct them.

[Intaris]

Any time I need to install LabVIEW, I have to use task manager to quit the "Offline Help" process multiple times for the installation to continue. And to add insult to injury, when I access the "offline" help, I get a network error and nothing is displayed.

Ive stopped noticing a lot of the issues tbh.

[Andrey_Dmitriev]

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@AEI_JR wrote:

Three times I attempted to install LabVIEW 2021 SP3 with a new laptop.  Every time it resulted in an unrecoverable BSOD upon reboot.  I finally installed v2023....

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Lenovo may be?

Re: BSOD: nipcibrd.sys SECURE_PCI_CONFIG_SPACE_ACCESS_VIOLATION

Solution 1, Solution 2 - Re: Labview Download Crashes Computer and Causes Blue Screen

kb: Blue Screen of Death After Installing NI Software.

Sufficient to install PXI Platform Services 2023 Q3 or a newer (prior reboot of course!), then old version such 2021 will be fine.

[AEI_JR]

It's a Dell.

[rolfk]

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@AEI_JR wrote:

It's a Dell.

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These new labtops use newest generation CPUs and according chipsets. LabVIEW 2021 comes with a DAQmx version that is stone age in comparison. All NI hardware drivers use the NI PAL driver which is part of the NI PXI driver architecture. They go deep into the OS driver and are somewhat sensitive to new hardware chipsets and according chipset drivers.

If you use the latest and greatest hardware you should also use the latest and greatest LabVIEW version. If that is not an option for some reason, only install LabVIEW itself and disable all the drivers. Then install the latest driver versions that still supports your old LabVIEW version.

[Ettepet]

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@rolfk wrote:

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@AEI_JR wrote:

It's a Dell.

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These new labtops use newest generation CPUs and according chipsets. LabVIEW 2021 comes with a DAQmx version that is stone age in comparison. All NI hardware drivers use the NI PAL driver which is part of the NI PXI driver architecture. They go deep into the OS driver and are somewhat sensitive to new hardware chipsets and according chipset drivers.

If you use the latest and greatest hardware you should also use the latest and greatest LabVIEW version. If that is not an option for some reason, only install LabVIEW itself and disable all the drivers. Then install the latest driver versions that still supports your old LabVIEW version.

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An alternative is to use virtual machines as a base for your Labview development environment.  This is also helpful if you want to use several different Labview versions concurrently.

NB: I deliberately use (offline) Windows 10 virtual machines, as Windows 10 has been pretty close to "final" for years.  Windows 11 is still in flux, where NI might require you to update the OS for newer Labview versions.

[BertMcMahan]

Just chiming in to say I have seen issues installing LV2026 as well, onto a current gen Lenovo laptop. I've installed it onto two machines- one went smoothly and the other took a few days to try various combinations of checkbox roulette in the various lists of "other stuff to add" but it finally made it.

No BSOD issues, but the installer would fail frequently. Often it was something about "error occurred while installing the MSI at [info]. An error occurred while attempting to create the directory C:\Users\Public\Documents\National Instruments\[whatever path]".

No idea why. I've noticed that Windows security is INCREDIBLY twitchy about blocking access to stuff, even when I tell it "no, this is fine". I'm not sure if this is a Windows thing or a security policy thing (unique to my org) or, perhaps, a Lenovo thing.

(This particular one is almost certainly not a Lenovo thing but we've had a ton of issues with this batch of laptops outside of LabVIEW)