New TDMS Importer

[Hooovahh]

Not sure if everyone was excited as I am, but I just found out that the new version of the TDMS Importer for Excel now supports file association. 

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/epd/p/id/2944

So basically what this means is you install Excel, then install this add-in, and when you double click a TDMS file it will open it in Excel.  This is the quickest easiest way to view TDMS files.  Also added was support for Excel 2010 32-bit as well.  

The file association is done through a EXE called ExcelTDMImporter.exe installed in the Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\TDM Excel Add-In\ folder.

I wanted to know if there were any command line parameters available for this EXE, like say to be able to choose to show Excel, or to configure the import parameters.  So I opened a command line and ran ExcelTDMImporter.exe /? and got alot of errors because it tried opening the file "/?".  The error messages were about 6 in a row saying "USI encountered an exception:".  And if I just run the EXE with no parameters it has no errors.

My suggestion would be this (not sure if I should make an idea exchange or not).  Could we have a list of the command line parameters the EXE has?  Or list them in a command line window, or new window when the "/?" parameter is given.  And could the error messages be more obvious when the file doesn't exist, or can't be imported?  Thanks.

[AndrewMc]

Thanks for your feedback.  We really wanted to make the TDMS experience better by making it more of a first-class citizen in Windows.  As well, we registered .tdm and .tdms with Microsoft so that if a user doesn't have the TDMS Excel plugin, it's easier to find out how to view the file contents (note that the Excel add-in is installed with all NI software products except TestStand): http://shell.windows.com/fileassoc/0409/xml/redir.asp?EXT=tdms

As to your idea, I would recommend that you post this on the idea exchange.  As an aside, for customization of loading TDMS files in Excel, we do have a COM API for use in Excel (via VBA) so that you can import data into Excel however you like: http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/10207.