Problems since upgrading to windows 10, what can I try?

[optoelectro]

Hi, I was forced to upgrade to Windows 10 yesterday and it has messed several parts of my system up.

LabVIEW itself is working fine. I'm using LV 2015 SP1, 32 bit.

The first trouble comes when I open NI MAX. I usually need this to configure a couple instruments, as well as just general use with them. Before the update, it would open immediately and find most of my instruments automatically. After the update, when I click it, it opens the loading screen (where it says "initializing", "loading plugins", etc), but hangs there for literally 5 or 10 minutes. The first couple times I thought it was just frozen, but it actually eventually loads. However, that's not acceptable. Why would it be doing this?

Here are the NI services running when I try to open it:

Second, I actually have to use Keysight's (formerly, Agilent) equivalent of NI MAX, called "Keysight Connection Expert" (KCE), sometimes. I use an Agilent GPIB/USB controller (I know, I know: buy NI in the future. Trust me, I will) to connect to my GPIB instruments. NI MAX finds most of them easily just by scanning, but for some strange reason I have never figured out, for a couple of my instruments, only KCE finds them (they don't show up in the scan of connected GPIB instruments in MAX) -- and I actually have to do it by manually connecting the GPIB address of the instrument in KCE. Strangely, after I do this in KCE, if I rescan with MAX, the instruments will show up there!

It's very strange (and please let me know if you have any idea why it would do this) and I'd love to not have to do that, but that's not really my issue here, I'm at peace with it. The problem is that when I start KCE, I get these two errors:

I can fix it by going to Control Panel -> Services, where it looks like this:

And then making all of them run. If I try KCE then, it works fine. However, when I reboot, they're not running again, so it throws the same errors until I do this. Does anyone know how I can make them start automatically when they're supposed to?

The last problem is, when I went to the NI Update manager, it took AGES to find the updates, which it has never done before, and I'm on a fast internet connection. It wasn't a one time thing, because I had to restart the installation a couple times and each time it had to search for updates. It eventually found them (again, like 5 or 10 minutes), but gave me this message:

So, similar to the NI MAX thing, it works... but just incredibly and unacceptably slowly. Does anyone know what might be causing all this trouble?

thank you for any advice!

[Bob_Schor]

Installing LabVIEW and its drivers on a "clean" OS is always a little bit of a challenge -- with a sufficiently complex install (multiple Toolkits, multiple Device Drivers, Real Time, Vision, FPGA, things a little out of the ordinary).  Since LabVIEW 2011, I've rarely had a version install perfectly the first time.

I could not even imagine that having such a complex mix of Device Drivers, Services, etc. would survive Microsoft's attempt at upgrading the Operating System "from underneath your feet".  I have successfully installed LabVIEW 2015 (and earlier versions) on Windows 10 (this machine is an example), but I started with a clean Win 10 installation and added LabVIEW next.

My advice is to try the usual methods to fix a failed install.  All of these methods require that you have (all of the) LabVIEW Installation media available.  In particular, if you have several versions of LabVIEW on your machine, you will need the media for all of them.

• The easiest method is the "Repair" method.  Go into Control Panels, open Programs, find National Instruments Software, select all of the items, and choose Repair.  Be ready with those DVDs -- you may be in for a lot of disk-swapping (and it won't always tell you which disk -- it will say something like "Insert the Disk with LabVIEW Real-Time 2015").
• If that fails, the next thing to try is the "Uninstall-Reinstall" method.  Go to Control Panels, open Programs, find National Instruments Software, and Uninstall everything.  When it finishes (it could take hours), reboot.  I also recommend looking for the NI-centric folders in Program Files, Program Files (x86), and on the root of the C: drive, and deleting them.  Reboot again, then start the Installation process.  If installing multiple versions of LabVIEW, install the oldest first.  Do not install any Drivers until all the version of LabVIEW are installed and you've rebooted the system and verified that LabVIEW can be run.
• The final approach, almost guaranteed to work, starts with a reformat of your hard drive.  Next, install Windows 10.  Once you have a clean OS, start installing all the rest of your software, including LabVIEW (do your "tools" and major support programs, such as Acrobat and Office, first, I'd suggest).

In my multiple times installing LabVIEW, I've used each of these methods (fortunately, I only used Method 3 once, on a fairly-recently-configured PC, so it wasn't too painful ...).  Many time, "Repair" works, but not always ...

Bob Schor

[optoelectro]

Hi, thanks a lot for the advice. I think I'm 95% of the way there. LV itself is actually working fine -- I can communicate with my machines through it, and I ran a couple programs that worked.

The problem is now NI MAX and KCE. I suspect KCE's problem is actually simpler to solve -- if it's working perfectly once I manually start its services, I just need to make it so it automatically does that, but I don't know much about Windows structure and how services are called (for example, do they typically start at boot, if they're set to 'Automatic' in the services panel?). Does anyone know how to do that part? I suspect that's a simple fix.

I'll try doing the 'repair' on NI MAX, first. Thank you for that advice!

[RTSLVU]

I know everyone likes to think newer = better

But if it's not's not working and not fully supported by NI why would you pull your hair out trying to make it work?

I believe you have a certain amount of time to rollback a Windows 10 upgrade to the previous operating system (7 or 8.x)

[optoelectro]

Thanks for the advice. I've considered this, and depending on how awful it is to get it working, that possibility is on the table for me.

[TroyK]

Sorry if this reply is resurrecting an old thread, but I've just been investigating what I need to consider when my IT department starts forcing Windows 10 upgrades on us.

With regard to hardware discovery there is a knowledge-base article here that suggests disabling the "Fast Start" feature of Windows 8/10.

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/DF6372D57C15B20286257A4B0053DA1E

[billko]

Some of your hardware may not have compatible drivers.