How to Remove LabVIEW Evaluation Software Watermark?

[fixindan]

Hello everyone,

I want to know how to remove the LabVIEW Evaluation Software Watermark on the lower right-hand corner of my executable. Here is some background information:

1. I'm doing my development in LabVIEW 2009.

2. My PC where I built both the executable and installer has licensed LabVIEW Professional Development System.

3. I've included LabVIEW 2009 run time engine in my installer.

4. The target PC where I ran my installer and my executable does not have any version of LabVIEW or any other NI application besides Device Drivers installed.

5. My executable application is actually a wrapper that can call one of several other VIs that are not built as stand alone .exe applications and that are not included in my executable application project. My executable does not have its own front panel/user interface. The other VIs that it calls have the actual user interface with the watermark that I want to remove, and these VIs I simply copied and pasted from my development PC onto my target PC.

I hope this is clear. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[smercurio_fc]

I don't understand where the watermark is showing. You first said that it's on the lower right-hand corner of your executable. But you then said that you executable does not have its own front panel/user interface. This makes no sense. The only reason why the watermark would be showing is that it thinks it's not licensed. Have you checked the license in the License Manager? Did the target PC have a trial version of LabVIEW installed on it at some point?

[cirrusio]

smercurio I think has nailed it.  I would be willing to put money on the fact that the machine to which you are deploying has an evaluation version of LV (check the License Manager).  Even though they are not stand-alone, it seems to me that you can find a way to build them into an executable thus circumventing the need for having the development system on the deployment computer.

[fixindan]

The executable itself actually opens up other VIs and then goes away, but these other VIs with user interface shows the watermark on the lower right-hand corner. The target PC does not ever have LabVIEW installed. I checked NI License Manager, there are no licenses (evaluation or full) installed.

[cirrusio]

Fixindan,

You can not run a raw VI (one that is not wrapped up in an executable) without a copy of Labview, so obviously a copy is running on your deployment computer.  And it has to be one that is as current as your version of LV on your development computer.  Take a look in the program files.  Otherwise, nothing about this makes sense.  Or I am obtuse and totally missing something.

m

[smercurio_fc]

You said you have device drivers installed on the target machine. What device drivers? Are you using ones that require a run-time license, such as NI-Vision? Are you using MathScript?

[fixindan]

I found out what the problem is. Apparently the watermark is a property of the VI itself. I resaved the VI with the watermark on my licensed development PC (this VI was made by someone else), put this resaved VI on my target PC and the watermark is gone. I never thought watermark is a property of the VI because when I open a VI with the watermark on my licensed development PC and close it, LabVIEW doesn't prompt me to save it because it doesn't see any changes, and yet the watermark property of the VI is changed as soon as I opened the VI. This is tricky. Thanks you two for your response.

[smercurio_fc]

Interesting. Did you notice if the timestamp is updated when you close the VI that doesn't prompt for saving?

[Intaris]

You can write a rapper VI to load any given VI from disk and run it.  Only the wrapper needs to be compiled to an application.

So running VIs does NOT require LabVIEW to be installed, but labVIEW run-time needs to be installed.

Shane.

[smercurio_fc]

Shane, I think you may have misunderstood what was going on. The OP was installing the Run-Time Engine on the target machine. The issue was that the VI he had copied over to the target machine to be launched by the executable on there had (apparently) been initially created with an evaluation version of LabVIEW. He had not touched this VI. All he did was copy it to the target machine. When this VI was loaded on the target machine in the run-time environment it still showed the watermark. If the OP took the VI and opened it with his (licensed) development version of LabVIEW and resaved it (even though it was the same exact version of LabVIEW and there were no changes), and then copied the resaved VI over to the target machine, the watermark was gone.

What I'm curious about is the secondary remark from the OP about the watermark disappearing when he simply opened and closed the VI, without saving it. I'm not sure about this part of it.