Runnning a LabVIEW 7.1.1 Application from a Flash Drive

[dkl]

I'm trying to run an application from a flash drive but get an "Unable to Open Resource Files" error. Not knowing what resource couldn't be found, and to isolate the problem, I built an application around a simple "Hello World" VI but it gives the same error. The run-time engine is in the same directory on the flash drive as the executable, as recommended by the 'Solution' in KnowledgeBase problem http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch/f80e3e5418a1197986256d6d0078261a. The Solution states (in part): "While on target computers you can put lvrt.dll in the same folder as the executable in order to avoid installing the Run-Time Engine, but do not do this on the host computer." The customer's (target) computer for my application will be Win NT but I've been testing on a Win XP laptop that has never had anything LabVIEW related installed on it.

Thanks,
Dean.....

[Robert M]

In order to get this to work, you are going to have to install the run-time engine on the target machine. Modifications to the run-time engine are not supported. When you run the application from the flash drive, it is copied into your computer's memory. Since the dll's in the run-time engine are dynamically linked at run time, they are not copied over and cannot be accessed at run-time. They need to be installed on the target computer in order to be properly loaded and linked.

[dkl]

Robert, thanks for the explanation. My customer's C: harddrive partition is protected and they don't allow any software installs there. If the run-time engine is installed on another partition (D: or E:) can the LabVIEW application find it?

Also, I tried simply copying the simple "Hellow World" app and the lvrt.dll to a common directory on my Win XP laptop harddrive and get the same error as before. Taking the quote in the Solution cited above literally: "While on target computers you can put lvrt.dll in the same folder as the executable in order to avoid installing the Run-Time Engine..." I shouldn't have to 'install' the run-time engine. Is this statement in the Solution false or am I still missing something?

Dean.....

[DFGray]

You can probably run the entire thing from the flash drive, if you want to. Do the following.

1. Copy the executable to the flash drive.


2. Create a directory on the flash drive for the run-time engine. We will call it “e:\lvrte” for demonstration purposes.


3. Find the directory the run-time engine is stored in. For example, the LV7.0 run time engine may be in C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\LabVIEW Run-Time\7.0. Copy everything to your new directory. If you know what your are doing, you can remove a few of the files (localization, etc.), but don't mess with it on the first try.


4. If the executable does not have an initialization file, create one in the same directory as the executable. Name it the exact name as the executable with the extension .ini (this is the Windows method, I don't know what Mac or Linux uses). This is a text file.


5. Add the following two lines to the end of the ini file:
   
   [LVRT]
   DLLPath="e:\lvrte"
   
   where the DLLPath variable is the location you placed the run-time engine files.

I have not tested this on a flash drive, but it is the standard method to redirect the executable to a specific run-time engine and it has worked well for me in the past. I would be very surprised if it didn't work for you. Good luck.

[davy.baker]

Any tricks or workarounds to get daqmx 7.4 to install to a removable drive ???
NI installer chokes on this. Flash that looks like fixed drive works ok.

Best,
Davy

[Ayman K]

Hello,

I am not aware of any tricks that would make installing DAQmx 7.4 possible on removable drives as it is not supported.

Ayman K