LabView on U3 USB thumb drive

[PaulatSTL]

Wondering if anyone else thinks this is a good way to use the Developer Suit now that such a device exist. I think that NI should code LabView in such a way that it would be U3 compliant and could be installed on a USB Thumb drive. This would allow developers to take LabView to a computer, develop the code. Compile it to an executable, transfer it to the computer and then take their activated install of the Developer Suite with them, as NI intended it to be (see licence agreement).

As it is now in our situation. We have to do a full install, develop a Vi that is unique to the computer / machine, compile and remove the Developer Suite so that we can comply with the licence agreement. Then go through the whole activation thing again when we have another job at a new install. With a USB thumb drive the hassle would be gone.

How many of you developers would like to have the full Suite installed on a USB Thumb Drive so that you can take LabView Developer with you to each job. Minus the install and unintall hassle? Not all developments can be done at some desk in some office across town, state or country. I think if enough of us promote this idea, NI just might see a need for this.

What do you all think?

Paul Vogler

St. Louis, Mo

[TCPlomp]

I can see that it would be nice to have 'LabVIEW on the run'

But I don't see why you NEED it.
What in the license agreement forces you to install LabVIEW on the target computer, compile an exe, uninstall LabVIEW?
What is wrong with LabVIEW on a development computer (a laptop?), compile, transfer exe, and carry on?

The development suite allows for this, if I'm correct.

Ton

[Lavezza]

>>What is wrong with LabVIEW on a development computer (a laptop?), compile, transfer exe, and carry on?

The problem is that debugging an application that interfaces with hardware is a lot easier in the LabVIEW development environment than with an executable.

At a previous job one of the machines I had to support used a VXI chassis filled with cards to control a combustion test rig. I couldn't do the development on my laptop and create an executable because there was no way to test the code on the laptop (no interface to the VXI chassis).

I've always wanted the option of having a license tied to a USB dongle. That way I could install LV on any computer I wanted, but could only develop on the one that had the dongle installed.

Pat

[Paul N STL]

TonP, Pat hits the nail on the head. Maybe the engineer and I are not smart enough to do this on a computer that is not connected to the hardware that we wish to interface with. Sometimes it is with an Adam module (DAQ) using RS-485 comm. And other times it is an Allen-Bradley PLC-5 using DH+. Unlike some of our previous installs were we paid about $1700 for a KT card. This time we spent $800 for a DLPCI card made by Equustek. After some banging of our heads on the full development suit with DSC and IA OPC add-ons. We found the problem was a syntax error. Not the same as AB and RSLinx. Something that would have caused us a lot of lost time going between the computer with the full install and then downloading to a non-network computer via a USB Thumb drive. I am sure it would have taken a lot longer.

Like I said before, if we could get LabView on a USB Dongle (thanks Pat for the right name) life would be greatly simplified.  Again using Pat's words "LabView on the go" sounds like something NI could use as part of their marketing campaign.

Paul Vogler
aka PaulatSTL

[MRedRaider]

What about using a virtual machine with Dev suite installed on it. Place the image files for the virtual computer on you pen drive...

all that would be required at the target station is to have something like VMWare or VirtualPC installed to read the image.

I Don't know that NI has a stance on this one way or the other, but it seems like a feasible solution if you have a large enough pen drive (currently BIG drives are getting very cheap)... Wouldn't even neccessarily have to be a pen drive, even just a regular external drive.

[Lavezza]

I'm don't think the virtual machine idea would work. I'm pretty sure that current virtual machine programs don't allow the guest OS to "see" PCI cards. In other words, if the host PC has a PCI MXI card installed, virtual PC's running on that machine won't see the MXI card.

Maybe future versions of VMWare will support this.

Pat

[TCPlomp]

OK, that makes sense!
I only use daqmx and that is pretty straightforward.

So I can see 2 workarounds, and since you worry about activation you probably have 8.x.

• Just don't activate, do a lot of testing on a evaluation license, when the executable is ready, do a build on the activated laptop
• Use the remote debugger of LabVIEW, it works, but I have had problems with reentrant subvi's

The remote debugger is a good solution. It also forces you to split problems up into small details that can easily be debugged.

Ton (not that I don't like an U3 compatible LabVIEW)

[PaulatSTL]

The way I see it, LabView has enough twist and turns without adding in things like Virtual PC and what not.  I was thinking that if a little old USB memory device could be loaded with the Developer Suite and add-ons. Well steping up to any computer and being able to develop a Vi would be the cats meow. And shoot, NI gets more money if the application uses something like DSC, then they get to sell the Run-Time version of the lic.

Kind of hoping for more to jump onto this idea.

Paul Vogler

St. Louis, Mo.

[MRedRaider]

Okay:

How about installing your OS and Dev Suite on an external drive, and BOOTING to it. Build and test the executable. Once you are done, you simply copy the program from the USB drive to the PC's Hard disk, unplug your "Porta-LV" and reboot!

Other solutions:

http://pcs.suite101.com/article.cfm/pocket_sized_windows This may or may not work, but interesting none the less.

[PaulatSTL]

MattH, are you taking into account that when you install LabView, that it writes information such as your serial number and activation information to the Windows register? So, just like the USB memory device is assigned a drive letter such as "E:" so will your USB external hard drive is assigned a drive letter. But it is the register on that computers C: drive that will have this information. But once you go to another computer, it's register will not contain that register information that is needed. And when you double click on the LabView icon, you will receive an error message to the effect of "There is a problem with the licence. Please contact NI for support." Now that is not word for word, but close enough.

With a U3 compliant program, I think what happens is that the program will write a file with this information on the same drive that you are installing LabView to. And the LabView program will look for this information on the same drive that it was installed to.

Does this help make it clear as to what needs to be done inorder for this to work? And why installing to a USB device be it  a thumb drive or an external device at this time wont work. I should know, I tried this the other day and it bombed with the above mentioned error. I then went into "regedit" and saw all of the info that I mentioned plus a whole lot more that I didn't feel needed to type out here. Go take a look inside of regedit, just dont change any of the info unless you want a lot of trouble reinstalling your OS and all programs. Even if I exported this data to the thumb drive. I am fairly sure that it is hard coded inside of the LabView application to look at the registery on the C: drive or what ever drive your OS resides.

But thanks in your interest and trying to suggest a work around. At this time, maybe I do not fully understand your suggestion. Would you give it a shot and come back and let the rest of us know if this worked. Install on one computer and then go to another computer and see if the LabView application will fire up.

Thanks

Paul Vogler