Replacement tool for Digital Waveform Editor that is compatible with 64-bit Win7

[j_osh_o]

I have a 64-bit Windows 7 PC and I am trying to use my HSDIO card with Digital Waveform Editor. The only digital format I can use with DWE is HWS. Since HWS is not compatible with 64-bit Windows, I cannot use DWE at all. Is there a replacement tool for DWE somewhere that is compatible with 64-bit windows? I was very surprised that this tool would not support 64-bit windows 7 which has been standard on new PCs for years. I have heard that you can use TDMS to store and load digital waveforms, but I have not found any examples. This still does not help me make use of DWE. Maybe this software is fading into the sunset??

[Leah-L]

Hi J_osh_o,

HWS files are compatible with 64-bit Windows 7 PC's. Do you mind pointing me to the documention you found that says otherwise, because I think that this might be a miscommunication.

I believe that HWS files are not compatible with 64-bit LabVIEW, but we recommend that most of our customers use the 32-bit version of LabVIEW with the exception of a few vision applications. See this document for more information about 32 vs 64 bit LabVIEW. 

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/71E9408E6DEAD76C8625760B006B6F98

Regards,

Leah

[Leah-L]

Can you describe what problems you are seeing so that we can try to reproduce this issue on our end with a 64-bit Windows 7 computer? Are you getting any errors? Does this happen when you try to create hws files from the DWE? Or when you try to generate from hws files using LabVIEW?

Leah

[j_osh_o]

I installed 32-bit LabVIEW 2011 on a windows 7 64-bit laptop. The HWS library was NOT installed as part of LabVIEW 2011. I followed the directions on the NI site to get HWS vi's installed on my machine: install NI-FGEN. I downloaded NI-FGEN and attempted to install on my machine. It would NOT install, and gave me the error "this software is not compatible with this version of windows". I was able to install the exact same NI-FGEN on a 32-bit WinXP machine. All of the HWS-related examples are clearly marked "will not run on 64 bit system".

[Kaitlin-N]

Hi J_osh_o,

Which version of NI-FGEN are you using. I noticed in the read me for our latest version 2.9.1 it states that it supports Windows 7 64-bit.

http://download.ni.com/support/softlib//Signal_Generators/NI-FGEN/NI-FGEN%202.9.1/NIFGEN291readme.ht...

Supported Operating Systems

NI-FGEN 2.9.1 supports the following operating systems:

• Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows XP Service Pack 2 (32-bit)
• Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)

Note  NI-FGEN 2.9.1 does not support Windows Server non-R2 editions.

Can you show me where you see that the examples are marked as not being compatible with Windows 64-bit?

Thanks,

[j_osh_o]

The description on the download page is very vague: Operating system: Windows 7; Windows Vista; Windows XP 32-bit; Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit; Windows Server 2003 R2 32-bit

I have a MacBook Pro with Windows 7 64-bit installed. When I double click on the NI-FGEN file I get an error "OS not supported, check compatibility with 64-bit OS".

When I copied the EXACT SAME FILE to my 32-bit WinXP computer, it installs fine. So the file is not corrupted, it just will not install on the Win7 64-bit machine.

[j_osh_o]

I have three problems:

1) HWS was NOT installed when I installed LabVIEW 2011 32-bit

2) NI-FGEN will NOT install on my windows 7 64-bit PC

3) In my opinion, the documentation is very confusing as to whether the HWS library is supposed to be compatible with windows 7 64-bit.

From the HSDIO readme:

"When using 64-bit user mode, NI-HSDIO does not support NI-HWS."

From the HWS examples in example finder:

"64-bit LabVIEW does not support NI-HWS, so you cannot use this example on 64-bit LabVIEW"

From the NI-FGEN download page:

"Operating system: Windows 7; Windows Vista; Windows XP 32-bit; Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit; Windows Server 2003 R2 32-bit"

Maybe it is obvious to you that this means 64-bit windows 7 is supposed to be supported. It is not obvious to me.

I will concede that from the NI-FGEN readme does explicitly indicate that win7 64-bit SHOULD be supported.

If HWS is supposed to be fully compatible with Win7 64-bit, why did this library not install as part of LabVIEW 2011 32-bit? Why will NI-FGEN not install on my machine? Why does the NI-FGEN installer say that my OS version is incompatible?

[Leah-L]

Hi j_osh_o,

Thanks for providing that information. HWS does not install with LabVIEW. It comes with our FGEN and HSDIO drivers. 

I can tell you that the latest versions of FGEN, HWS, and LabVIEW are all compatible with 64-bit Windows 7 (I have a 64-bit Windows 7 computer myself). Because the documentation does not specify what version of Windows 7 it is compatible with, you can assume that it works with both 32 bit and 64 bit. 

It is, however, unexpected that you would be unable to install FGEN. 

Can you tell me what version of FGEN you are trying to install? What error are you receiving when you try to install it? Can you send screenshots?

Regards,

Leah

[Leah-L]

Hey j_osh_o,

I wanted to clear up some things. It seems like I gave you some wrong information about HWS. 

As it turns out, you were right about HWS. HWS is not supported in 64-bit mode at all.  The FGEN driver can be installed on a 64 bit OS, but HWS will only work with 32-bit versions. 

However, you should be able to use the DWE with a 64-bit OS.  Instead of using HWS files, you can export binary/ASCII files from DWE, and you can import VCD/ASCII files into DWE.  HWS is not necessary to use the DWE or AWE.  

I still would like to address the issue of not being able to install FGEN on your computer. This is unrelated to the fact that HWS isn't supported on 64 bit Windows, and I would be happy to help troubleshoot this issue. 

Leah

[j_osh_o]

I cannot make screen captures on this PC, since it is a Mac laptop with Win7 64-bit installed. There error message when I try to install NI-FGEN is:

F:\NIFGEN291.exe

The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're
running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need
an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the
software publisher.

OK