How do I build an application that will run without being installed?

[Obelix]

I have seen some of the prior posts on trying to do this, but most of them were older, so I'll ask:

Using 7.1, how do I build an application that will run without having to install the runtime engine? I have a client that wants to run serial port monitoring VIs to watch some custom hardware we built for him. His IT dept. won't let him install anything. If I could make this VI run off of a USB thumb drive without needing anything installed on the system it would be ideal. Space is not a problem, so I could include any runtime files needed. Can anyone tell me how to do this?

Thanks

[Dennis_Knutson]

The LabVIEW run-time engine can be in the same folder as the executable so putting that on the thumb drive would work. Does your application use VISA for serial port monitoring? That, I believe, would require installation.

[Obelix]

Yeah it does use some of the low level visa VIs. So there's no way to make this work as a truely standalone app?

[Dennis_Knutson]

Not the way you've described it. I'm a little confused though. You've delivered some hardware to a client. Did this include any software? How is the client communicating with it? If it's software that you provided, does that use VISA and didn't that require installation? If the client is using his own software for serial communication, your little monitoring program wouldn't work because the OS wouldn't allow VISA to open a seesion to a port that's open by another app.

[Obelix]

Yep, looks like you're right. Everything else works, but not the serial port communications. Is there a file I can add to my standalone to make this work? I know back in version 5 there was a serpdrv file that could be included to make serial port communications function. I'v even still got a copy that I might throw in there just for kicks. Is there a current version that might allow it to work properly?

[Obelix]

This is older hardware we provided back in the 90's. We had a dll written to call from Excel. they've finally moved into the new milenium and realized that the dll doesn't work on win2k or XP. They asked us to update them and the easiest way seemed to be to use labview and an activeX container to hold a MSspreadsheet. This let them directly export collected data into their old style excel files and it let me avoid getting back into VBA and dlls.

[Obelix]

To answer your question about VISA installation, no I don't think it did involve installation. We took their project and extended it to some more advanced hardware that we built for other customers. We used Labview 5 for communications with this and it would run from anywhere without installation as long as it had it's proper file structure around the executable.

[Obelix]

all these reply posts seem to be posting backwards.. sorry

[Dennis_Knutson]

If you have the old version of LabVIEW, then you can move the old serpdrv to your newer version of LabVIEW and use that instead. I'm not sure of the exact process. I remember some posts on this issue when NI dropped it in favor of VISA. You might try a search of the forums. With the serpdrv functions in your new program, you should then be able to install serpdrv on the same folder as the exe on the thumb drive and get it to work.

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Under what operating system was it running under back in the 90's when it was working?

I think that starting with NT platforms (applies to 2000 and XP, but not 9x) the hardware abstraction layer (HAL) prevented direct I/O to serial ports. Serial port related code that ran fine on 3.x and 9x would not run under NT platforms without modification.

Just some food for thought, do not know if it applies to your situation.

Good Luck