Several question s about runtime Engine, application builder and labview player

[ferry1979]

I am a little confused by all the options to distribute a program.

Please help bij answering (one of) the following questions:

1. Does an application built with the application builder always need the LV runtime engine? The LV runtime engine is 33 Mb to download!

2. Is there anyway to make a 'normal' executable that runs on a windows machine, without any supporting installed software?

3. What is the advantage of the labview player above the runtime Engine?

All questions refer to the latest software versions of NI software

Thanks in advance,
Regards,

Ferry

[altenbach]

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@ferry1979 wrote:

1. Does an application built with the application builder always need the LV runtime engine? The LV runtime engine is 33 Mb to download!

Yes, the runtime engine contains all the stuff that is common to all LabVIEW applications. This is not any different than e.g. the Visual basic runtime (VBrun...) or dforrt.dll for Fortran.

If you built the application, you can strip it a little bit by including the runtime with the installer and leaving out unneeded modules (see image from the 7.1 builder).

The advantage of a seperate runtime engine is that applications are very small. The runtime needs to be installed only once. On any broadband connection, 33MB is peanuts. I distribute everything without runtine, but tell people to download and install the runtime directly from NI.

(In LabVIEW 4, no runtime was needed, with the disadvantage that even the simplest program was multiple megabytes. Not an efficient solution).

(Maybe in a few years LabVIEW will be so prevalent that the LabVIEW runtime will be part of a standard OS install ;:)

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2. Is there anyway to make a 'normal' executable that runs on a windows machine, without any supporting installed software?

No. See above.

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3. What is the advantage of the labview player above the runtime Engine?

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The two are quite different. The labview player is more a simple educational tool, because it lets users inspect the diagram. It is not designed for any serious application deployment.

Message Edited by altenbach on 08-21-2005 10:05 AM

[ferry1979]

Thanks Altenbach,

your answer clearifies everything.

I never thought of the fact the VB en C++ made use of the standard libraries available in windows.

Regards,

Ferry

[Stephmon]

I'm probably missing something painfully simple, but I seem to be caught in a catch 22. I am among the first in my company to work in 7.1. As a result, everyone else has 6.x runtime engine installed. Naturally, my stand alone executables generate the "can't find runtime engine 7.1..." error.

So, I went back and created an installer, with the runtime engine included. Here's the catch 22... the installer generates the same error!

Here's a locked box, with the key inside.

What am I missing?