LV 8.0 Installer files

[(rem)maris]

Hallo,

as I can't find the informations on the ni website, I have to ask here:

Wherefore are all the files of the bin folder of the installer folder
build with LV 8.0?
The folder has a size of approx. 50 MByte and I can't belive that all
these files are needed.
How can I create an installer with a minimum of size, e.g. for
distribution per email.

Kind regards, Niko

[GerdW]

Hi Niko,

your question is very generic...
Labview will put all files into the installation folder that will be needed afterwards... That could be VISA libraries or dll's for some of the math packages and so on.
And 50MB is rather small, here in the forum also installer packages of 600MB were reported 🙂

[DuffmanSays]

Niko,

GerdW is correct; the installer generated will contain only the minimum requirements for the execution of the program. The bulk of the installer memory requirement is most likely the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine. The link below is to the LabVIEW 8.20 Run-Time Engine, which is 92 MB. Unless LabVIEW is installed on the target machine, this is required for the application's execution. I am sorry if this causes additional trouble for you. I hope that you are still able to distribute your application. Have a great day!

LabVIEW 8.20 Run-Time Engine:
http://digital.ni.com/softlib.nsf/websearch/9BCED01B8F69F8A0862571BF0078FF96?opendocument&node=132060_US

Mike Duffy
National Instruments
Applications Engineer

[LunaBlue]

Thank you for your answers.

But I am wondering why I find on the target machine in the run time engine folder 5 folders with different languages each 6 MB. In the App Builder I checkes only one language. It seems to be, that there is some potential to reduce some file size.

With LV 5.1 it was possible to select e.g. the lvrte.dll as support files, so that the run time engine install was not necessary. It is also possible with LV 8?

Do I find anywhere a documentation what is NI-RPC, NI-MDF, NI-LOGOS,...?
I find all this in my installer files and I think I will not need all this stuff for my small application.

Thanks a lot, Niko

[API]

Yup, and I found this point too, and I want tell, NI is lazy, why I say this, runing time engineer, is whole of program that user created should use whole of runing time engineer source ? and some of the other source, and labVIEW would pack entire "NI default Package files" inside the installer, e.g. entire "models, and script" folders, lvrt.dll, mesa.dll, lvjpeg, lvapp.rsc etc, this is lazy behavior, if labVIEW system can analyse or detect the installer which source would need , which not, and add the detail source into the installer is the better way, why the other EXE creator creates install or exe is small ? example, VC, VB ? and the ini file, yes I know, the ini file can reach some special settings about, and record some issue from user, but sometimes, user don't need the ini file, why there aren't an option to user to select, need ini file or not ? sometimes I hate the ini file following my EXE,  and I hope NI would realize it in the not long furture. 

[Matt_S.]

Hello All,

As a response to the two above posts, I completely understand your desire to have a smaller installer file and your desire to be able to have the software choose which pieces of the Run Time Engine it needs. As far as the coding for this, it is no simple task. We also want to ensure the flexibility in the RTE that is expected with LabVIEW applications.

I will certainly make a product suggestion for the both of you regarding this. You can also make your own product suggestion here.

http://digital.ni.com/applications/psc.nsf/default?OpenForm&temp1=&node=

Customer feedback is definitely listened to and appreciated. It's the best way for you to help us shape the future of our products to suit your needs.

Regards,
Matt S.

Message Edited by Matt_S. on 09-05-2006 05:01 PM

[Michael Stammberger]

Hi,

> How can I create an installer with a minimum of size, e.g. for
> distribution per email.

I'm working with Visual-C++ 6 and somtimes have to call some DLLs
written - or better said "painted" 😉 in LabView. These DLLs provide
just calculations or file-access-functions. No graphical objects.

With the Runtime Engine 7.1 it was very simple to extract the necessary
runtime files - just two files: lvrt.dll and lvapp.dll (~8,5MB)
These two files have to be inside the same folder as the EXE and the
DLLs are.

Then there was the upgrade to LabView 8.0.1. NI made some changes to
the behaviour of the runtime - just good things in mind, but a little
strange to me:
I needed some hours to find the following solution:

1. The file lvrt.dll has to be inside your application folder.
2. At least one of the language-resource folders (!) containing the
files lvapps.rsc and vidialogs.rsc has to be copied into your
application folder. Copy the folder - the RTE looks into the folder and
will not work if you copy only the files into your application folder!
3. The clue: Inside the windows/system32-Folder there is the file
niini32.dll. It is marked with the attribute 'system'. This file has
also to be copied into your application folder.
All these files together need ~16,5MB.

After this, I uninstalled the RTE and my applications are working
properly.
(My application works also without the file vidialogs.rsc. I think this
depends on the use of graphical controls).

Note: I still haven't tested it on a computer, where the RTE has never
been installed before. Maybe the RTE-uninstall is not working properly
and leaves some fragments.
Hope this may help you.

Regards,
Michael

[rolfk]

---

@Michael Stammberger wrote:
Hi,

> How can I create an installer with a minimum of size, e.g. for
> distribution per email.

I'm working with Visual-C++ 6 and somtimes have to call some DLLs
written - or better said "painted" 😉 in LabView. These DLLs provide
just calculations or file-access-functions. No graphical objects.

With the Runtime Engine 7.1 it was very simple to extract the necessary
runtime files - just two files: lvrt.dll and lvapp.dll (~8,5MB)
These two files have to be inside the same folder as the EXE and the
DLLs are.

Then there was the upgrade to LabView 8.0.1. NI made some changes to
the behaviour of the runtime - just good things in mind, but a little
strange to me:
I needed some hours to find the following solution:

1. The file lvrt.dll has to be inside your application folder.
2. At least one of the language-resource folders (!) containing the
files lvapps.rsc and vidialogs.rsc has to be copied into your
application folder. Copy the folder - the RTE looks into the folder and
will not work if you copy only the files into your application folder!
3. The clue: Inside the windows/system32-Folder there is the file
niini32.dll. It is marked with the attribute 'system'. This file has
also to be copied into your application folder.
All these files together need ~16,5MB.

After this, I uninstalled the RTE and my applications are working
properly.
(My application works also without the file vidialogs.rsc. I think this
depends on the use of graphical controls).

Note: I still haven't tested it on a computer, where the RTE has never
been installed before. Maybe the RTE-uninstall is not working properly
and leaves some fragments.
Hope this may help you.

Regards,
Michael

---

If you use any of the 3D controls that got added in LabVIEW 6 you will also need the mesa.dll and the models subfolder in the runtime engine folder.
If you use any Advanced Analysis library functions, lvanlys.dll is also necessary but not enough. You need the Intel MKL library too installed on the system and that one is not simple to do in the way LabVIEW expects to find it.

All in all for anything but the most trivial applications, installing a custom selection of runtime engine components gets very quickly ugly and nasty and far beyond the troubles an average LabVIEW programmer is prepared and willing to deal with.

Rolf Kalbermatter

Message Edited by rolfk on 04-09-2008 08:14 PM