LabView installer builder asks for old NI-DAQ distribution

[Steve B.]

I am building an application and installer for a DAQ application.  I have recently installed NI-DAQ 8.3 and LabView 8.2.  Now the installer builder complains that it can't find the distribution for NI-DAQ 8.1.  I have opened and re-saved the VI and recreated the project and still get the error.  If I uncheck NI-DAQ 8.3 in the Additional Installers section, there is no error, but then I wil need to have users run the NI-DAQ install separately.

[Steve B.]

One additional bit of information: when I select the option to include the MAX hardware configuration, the installer again fails by asking for the NI-DAQ 8.1 distribution, despite the fact that the installer was not selected to be included.

[Thaison_V]

Hi Steve,

I hope you're doing well.  It sounds like you're having some trouble including the NI-DAQmx drivers in your Installer build specification.  When you select the NI-DAQmx 8.3 option in the Additional Installers screen, there is a field called Installer Source Location.  On your build specification, where is this pointing?  In most cases, this should be pointed to your CD-ROM drive, and you should have the Device Driver CD that you used to install the NI-DAQmx 8.3 driver.  The files necessary to create the installer are not copied to your hard drive when you install the CD as they take up some extraneous hard drive space, so yo uwill need to have the driver CD to access these files.  If you are still having trouble after this, please provide more details on what occurs, and we will try to help you as best as we can.  Have a great day!

Thaison V
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[TroyK]

I'm having the same problem, I upgraded to LabVIEW 8.2. In fact I uninstalled everything and did a clean install. The only DAQmx version installed is 8.3. However when I try to build an installer including the NI-DAQmx 8.3 drivers it asks for NI-DAQmx 8.1 distribution! Which I do not have! I've tried pluging in the original install disks and a whole bunch of old ones. It isn't happy with any of them! It even crashes when I put in the NI-DAQ 7.5 distribution disk. Has anyone worked out what to do?

[Lorielle P]

Hi Troy,

I understand your frustration.  What version of LabVIEW are you upgrading from?  Is it possible that the VIs you built under that older version used that version of the DAQ driver?  Depending on what version you are upgrading from, you may benefit from a mass compile of the VIs to be included in the installer.  Another option is to download DAQmx 8.3.1 to your harddrive and install it from there.

R&D has stated that if the installer is asking for a particular distribution, that some component had to have come from that CD. So maybe you inherited it from some old code. But the installer just gathers this information from the registry, and the only way around it is to actually insert the CD.  Alternatively, you can just install DAQmx separately (include it on the installation CD) and not bundle it with the installer.

Please post back if you are still encountering trouble.

[TroyK]

Hi Lorielle P, Thanks for your reply, I upgraded from LV7.1 to 8.2. I don't think I've ever had DAQmx 8.1. I did a mass compile as soon as I upgraded to LV8.2. DAQmx 8.3 was on the hard drive when I tried it. Still no good.

I ended up copying my project to another pc that only ever had LV8.2 on it. After rebuilding the project on the new pc (all the dynamic vi paths and support file paths were broken) The installer used DAQmx 8.3 quite happily.

The only problem is the exe wouldn't work on the new pc. Something to do with the excel vis I was using. They only compile when the App Builder is in debug mode, but the exe is broken. I don't know if it was because they're built using the old GOOP toolkit, or because they were made for LV6i or because they are made for Excel97 ActiveX controls and I've got Excel2003 (different ActiveX, thanks Microsoft )

Anyway, I think that's getting off topic. I spent 2 days trying to fix these installer problems and now I've given up! Because of pressure to get the project distributed I reinstalled LV7.1, restored the backup I made before upgrading to 8.2 and built the exe and installer. When things quieten down here I might try again. Very frustrating.

Troy

Message Edited by Troy Kujawski on 01-19-2007 09:09 AM

[RFrisch]

I am having a similar problem.  I am attempting to build an installer that contains the NI-VISA Runtime Engine.  I am using a computer that has had several versions of LabVIEW installed (6.1, 8.0, 8.20, 8.21, 8.5, 8.5.1).  While building the installer, I was prompted to insert the February 2007 NI Device Driver Disc 3.  I went through all of my LabVIEW installation discs.  None was the correct disc.  After hours of searching, I finally found the correct driver disc - one that was included with some NI hardware that we purchased.

This is unacceptable.  I shouldn't be required to insert the exact NI device driver disc that was inserted in my computer at some point in the past.  If the current device driver on my development computer is compatible with the source code that I have compiled, executed, and for which I am building an installer, then I should be able to use the device driver disc that I used to install the current version of LabVIEW that is on my development computer.

Ryan Frisch

[TroyK]

Have a look at this thread. It explains what is happening and some suggestions on how to get around it.

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&message.id=329378#M329378

Message Edited by Troy K on 09-11-2008 09:14 AM

[FlavioPuhl]

I am having the same problem.  When creating the installer (with VISA resource), is asked to insert an specific driver disc that no longer exist.

Even with the runtime engine available on internet is no possible to execute serial communications ( that is the pourpose of my VI).

Still looking fo a solution..

Flávio Puhl 

[HollyBerry]

Hi Flavio,

When you install VISA from a disk, the VISA installer runs from the disk without putting the installer on your computer. To build an installer with the VISA installer in it, you will need to either insert the disk or download a copy of VISA from online (which will include the installer) and point it to that location. I would recommend downlaoding VISA and rebuilding your installer to include it.

If your installer doesn't include VISA, you can install VISA individually on the target machine with your executable but you need to make sure that the version of VISA you install is the version that the executable is expecting.