DDE Server Window: "LKSOCK.dll is missing"

[clarkleach]

I'm running LV8.0.1 on Windoze 8.1 (yeah, I know...but it has been working fine).  I hadn't fired it up for at least a month and started it to modify a program.  I get the following error four or five times in a row:

[DDE Server Window: LabVIEW.exe - System Error]

The program can't start because LKSOCK.dll is missing from your computer.  Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

After clicking through this four or five times everything seems to work normally.

A search of my computer yielded "lksock.dll" in "C:\System32\" right where I expected to find it.  This raises several questions:

1.  Why is DDE Server even starting (if that's what this message means)?  I haven't used DDE since Win 3.11...

2. What is "LKSOCK.dll" and why does LV think I need it?  Isn't it somehow related to Lookout?

3.  Why does it say it is missing when it is quite obiously present?  Is it actually looking for "LKSOCK.dll" and not "lksock.dll"?

Any help would be appreciated.

[niamsam]

To answer your question, LKSOCK.dll is part of the shared variable engine.  Are you running Windows 8.1 x64? It is possible that is looking in C:\Windows\SysWOW64 for that DLL not C:\WIndows\System32

A force reinstall of LabVIEW should add the dll to the correct directory. Here is a KnowlegeBase on force reinstalls.

Force Reinstall NI Software from the Command Prompt in Windows:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/ADD22E807D5A12AD862579EC00760F79

A note is that LabVIEW 8 is not supported in Windows 8. The latest supported version is Windows XP x86. It looks like LabVIEW 8 files can be opened in newer versions of LabVIEW. You could install LabVIEW 2013, and convert the file to a LabVIEW 2013 file.

Regards,

Niamsam

[clarkleach]

Yeah, I could install LV 2013 at great expense for something I use rarely.  The thing is, it was working "fine" for a long time; I never saw this error until I ran LV the other day for the first time in a month or two.  Something has changed in that period of time and it's not LKSOCK.dll or its location.  I don't use shared variables; is there anyway to turn it off?

[clarkleach]

Copying lksock.dll to C:\Windows\SysWOW64 made the error message go away.  I wonder why the file disappeared in the first place...

[Linards]

Thanks, clarkleach,  for the exact description of the problem. I have exactly the same one, running Labview 2011 on Wind 7 64 bit, after not running LV on this computer for ca. 2 months. The "missing"  lksock.dll actually exists in ..\system32 folder.  So this seems to be a more general problem for 64 bit Windows. Could it be caused by some of MS updates?