New labview install - Cant build installer

[DP2018]

Hi all,

I have several years experience in writing labview programs and deploying them to non-development machines, however I have never had to actually install the labview development software and I am running into an issue.

My program works fine on my development system. The problem I am having comes when I try to build the installer in LV 2018. When I try to build the installer, labview cant find DAQmx (see attached picture). I have installed the latest daqmx drivers so I'm not sure why I am getting this error.

If it matters, my program is reading data from a NI-GPIB-USB-HS with a visa read.

[Gregory]

Having it installed is not the same as having the install media. You should be able to download the DAQmx 18.5 driver from NI and point it towards that file. After you do it the first time, it will save that installer so you don't have to find it again.

Here is just the runtime, which should be enough: http://www.ni.com/download/ni-daqmx-run-time-engine-18.5/7831/en/

If not, here is the full install: http://www.ni.com/download/ni-daqmx-18.5/7829/en/

[DP2018]

I have downloaded both of those and ran both of the executable's. I guess I'm not sure what location to point to, or what if anything i am supposed to do with the DAQmx files I downloaded. 

The runtime file had a self extracting zip folder that I chose a location to extract it to and pointed Labview to that location and it said that it needed DAQmx (not daqmx runtime). The actual DAQmx file just opens an installation wizard and I try to point labview to the location of where the installation wizard installed everything and labview says that the file isn't found there.

I am probably just going to install all the files manually on the host computer, but that is obviously not a good long term solution.

[Tapan_Mojidra]

If you have installation media source then navigate the path to that location, wizard will automatically find correct source file to create installer.

[DP2018]

I tried linking Labview to where the DAQmx files were installed to. I tried linking Labview to the location of the zipped folder of DAQmx. Then out of desperation I tried to link Labview to literally every folder in Program files (x86)/ National Instruments with no luck. You would think when you install the DAQmx drivers that it would be inferred that you want the installation media to be "installed" as well. The process is very frustrating when you spend more time trying to get your development software working than you spend actually developing software.

I never did figure it out and ended up just building the installer with everything except DAQmx and installed DAQmx on the host computer and everything worked. 

[Hooovahh]

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@DP2018 wrote:

You would think when you install the DAQmx drivers that it would be inferred that you would want the installation media to be "installed" as well.

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Would you?  I mean I get your point but installing LabVIEW and device drivers, along with other toolkits usually span multiple DVDs.  And with NI releasing new updates every 6 months, along with random f patches.  Some users have stated this is over 30GB.  This is in addition to the many GB of space taken up by NI installing this.  Anyway the installer cache can be found in <ProgramData>\National Instruments\MDF\ProductCache and periodically I will wipe it out to free up space.

For me it is a pretty minor process.  I download the full developer suite, or web install and put it on the network so all developers can find it.  If I have a USB key that gets copied to the network.  Then I run the installer from there and install all I need.  When I go to make an installer of my own it finds the installers on the network because that was where they were when they first got installed.  Even if it didn't find it I can just browse to it.

[DP2018]

From my understanding the files are already installed somewhere when I installed the DAQmx drivers, thus taking up space. Labview just doesn't know where they are (and apparently neither do I). I'm glad this is a simple task for you, but there are dozens of posts just like mine (all of which just say point to the file with no further explanation) so its not that simple if you've never done it before.

[Hooovahh]

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@DP2018 wrote:

From my understanding the files are already installed somewhere.

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Sorta but not really.  Say I installed DAQmx.  During the install it looks at my system and realizes what things I have and installs support for DAQmx for those things.  If I have LabVIEW 2017, and 2018, and CVI, it will detect that and install support for DAQmx for those things, and include the runtime engine for those things.  So yes after installing DAQmx those files are on your system, but these files are not the same as the installer.  The installer can install support for DAQmx for LabVIEW 2016, but my system doesn't have those files installed, because during the install those components were put on my system.

There are tons of other things the installer will do to, like checking and adding for dependent things like .Net runtime and other things too.  If I were to just copy files from my system and put them into an installer those things would be missing.  That's why when you make an installer it really needs access to those original installers so that they can be included.  Maybe when things get more package centric things will be different, since packages seem to be cached during install.

[DuncanW.]

Hi DP2018,

As other users have mentioned, there is a distinct difference between the program files that support the DAQmx functions in LabVIEW and the installer software needed to copy these files, move them into the correct directories, link them to LabVIEW, check for dependencies, and make any necessary edits to your system state (such as editing registry files).

Since the installer software for NI drivers tends to be large, NI separates it from the smaller set of files you need to actually run DAQmx. This means you can delete it easily out of the download folder, instead of having to root around in the program files to find some place it has hidden itself after installing.

This creates the side effect that you need to keep track of the installer media separately from the program files. Luckily, you can always download a new copy of the DAQmx installer from ni.com if you lose track of your existing one. You can download the zip file from the link below:

DAQmx 18.1.0 Download

http://www.ni.com/download/ni-daqmx-18.1/7702/en/\

Once you have the zip file, extract it. This extracted folder is your installer folder. You can link this folder to the LabVIEW Application Builder when it asks for the location of the DAQmx installation media and it should work.

I agree that the difference between installer media and installed media is not obvious. I'll look into our existing documentation on this point and consider making some new learning resources. Thanks for pointing this out.

Best,

Duncan Waldrop

Applications Engineer

National Instruments