If you think LabVIEW takes too long to launch, here are a few things you can do to speed it up:
- Uninstall Modules/Toolkits - If there are modules and toolkits installed that you never use, you can uninstall them and speed up LabVIEW launch time. Even if you have something installed under an evaluation license and the license expires, an expired toolkit/module still adds to launch time.
- SCC Server Performance - During launch, LabVIEW connects to your Source Code Control server (if you have SCC enabled). If your server is slow, or gets easily bogged down, this can make your LabVIEW launch much slower. A faster or more responsive SCC Server is the only solution (other than disabling SCC) for this problem.
- Skip GSW at Launch - You can select Tools > Options > Environment > General > Skip Getting Started window on launch to have LabVIEW open with a blank VI instead of the Getting Started Window. On my machine this shaves about 1 second off my LabVIEW launch time.
- Load palettes in background - This is the default setting for loading palettes (Tools > Options > Control/Functions Palettes > Loading), so if you haven't changed anything, you're good. But since I have often advocated changing this setting to benefit Quick Drop users (see here), I figured I should mention it for anyone looking for ways to launch LabVIEW as fast as possible.
- Clear out user.lib and instr.lib - Even if you do load palettes in the background, there are some initial palette loading operations that still must happen during LabVIEW launch. So the fewer palette items you have, the faster LabVIEW will launch. If you have unused instrument drivers in instr.lib, or unused libaries in user.lib, it may be a good idea to clear those out. Another alternative would be to move these items out of user.lib and instr.lib into another location and add that location to your project. This way, the VIs are still available for use, but they are not in the palettes, and therefore do not affect launch time.
Do you have any other suggestions on how to speed up LabVIEW launch time? Let's hear them!
