LV Driver - Installation - LV32 bit and LV 64- bit

[amitwadje]

Hi,

I am making build spec for LV driver, I did the following experiment,

Experiment,

1. Create a installer on LV2014 32 bit

  2. Path for source destination:

      C:\Program Files(x86)\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2014\instr.lib

3. Now, I install this driver on another system having LV2014(64 bit) and now it takes path

         C:\Program Files(x86)\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2014\instr.lib and install my driver into it.

it creates a specifed path and put drivers there, it dont care that LV32 bit is not present on system.

Result

My drivers are not present in function palate Instrument I/O section but if I copy this to

C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2014\instr.lib, It works fine.

Experement 2: if I change the proper path for 64 bit during installtion(so called at step 3 if Exoeriement 1) following is the result

My questions are,

1. How can make driver installer user friendly for both 32 and 64 bit LV user?

2. Is there any solution that installer will take path automatically with respect to LV 32bit or LV 64 bit (whichever is present)?

3. Is it mandatory to appear driver in Instrument IO function palate, it must be present in instr folder ? What if I want to choose any other folder to install this this driver and still want to make appear my drivers in Instrument I/O Function palette ??

Thank you.

-Amit

[amitwadje]

Hi,

I am making build spec for LV driver, I did the following experiment,

Experiment,

1. Create a installer on LV2014 32 bit

  2. Path for source destination:

      C:\Program Files(x86)\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2014\instr.lib

3. Now, I install this driver on another system having LV2014(64 bit) and now it takes path

         C:\Program Files(x86)\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2014\instr.lib and install my driver into it.

it creates a specifed path and put drivers there, it dont care that LV32 bit is not present on system.

Result

My drivers are not present in function palate Instrument I/O section but if I copy this to

C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2014\instr.lib, It works fine.

Experement 2: if I change the proper path for 64 bit during installtion(so called at step 3 if Exoeriement 1) following is the result

My questions are,

1. How can make driver installer user friendly for both 32 and 64 bit LV user?

2. Is there any solution that installer will take path automatically with respect to LV 32bit or LV 64 bit (whichever is present)?

3. Is it mandatory to appear driver in Instrument IO function palate, it must be present in instr folder ? What if I want to choose any other folder to install this this driver and still want to make appear my drivers in Instrument I/O Function palette ??

Thank you.

-Amit

[Jacobson-ni]

Amitwadje,

What driver are you trying to download and are you sure that this driver is compatible with 64-bit LabVIEW?

This behavior is very similar to trying to install a toolkit that is not compatible with 64-bit LabVIEW.

[Dennis_Knutson · Accepted solution]

As I previously said, I think creating an installer is way overkill. Package your driver in the same way that NI does and in the way users have become accustomed to, and you have no problems.

Even if you solve the problem with an installer, you cannot simply change the install folder since the paths for the VIs in the project and the mnu files will not be updated and will have to be manually changed. You can see this for yourself by installing one of NI drivers to a different folder.

[natasftw]

You understand there are two program files folders and programs install into one or the other based on being 32 or 64 bit, right?  Trying to force a 64-bit application into the 32-bit folder isn't surprising if it causes issues.

What's the purpose of this "experiment" you're conducting exactly?

[amitwadje]

Hi

thank you all for answers

@Dennis : Agee with with you to use a regular solution for distrubuting drivers.

@natasftw: just tired and enconter this when I was installing this on LV - 64bit system

--Amit