Upgrade to 2009?

[taper]

I'm looking for help deciding whether to upgrade to Labview 2009.  My department is planning an upgrade from our current 8.2 within the next few months.  There's the valid concern that the newest version of a program isn't always stable, so we're leaning towards 8.6.1 instead.  We do have that on a few machines, and everyone seems to like it.  We have a Volume License Agreement, so cost isn't an issue.  It'll probably be at least 3 years until the next upgrade.  Right now we have WinXP everywhere, though we'll probably be forced into Win7 before the next Labview upgrade.

Typical use is basic IO, NI-DAQ, CAN, serial, file read/write, etc with custom hardware.  We have a few more advanced stands with PXI chassis doing RF testing.  Some VIs will run continously for months at a time.  We have a fair amount of legacy code going all the way back to stuff written in 6.1, although we're slowing rewriting it as time allows.

The biggest thing is making sure Labview can run a moderate program stable for several months in a row.  Other than that, any thoughts on must-have new features, known issues, or upgrade cycles?

[Hummer1]

We had the same concerns.  We put it on one of the 6 machines in our license and ran all our old stuff (8.6.x) and didn't have any issues that I recall.  The regional clean up block diagram feature is a help.  I don't know about long term stability yet, but we are converting all our machines to it.

Hummer1

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Due to a bug I just ran into last week in 8.2.1, I just ported the application (still adding features 2 years later....) over to 8.6.1 today. I did not feel comfortable jumping all the way to 2009. Also have SSP so versions are available.

-AK2DM

[hecmar.arreola]

Hi!

I used (very thoroughly) each version release from v8 to v9 (2009).  Out of all the v8 LabVIEW versions, I found that 8.2 was the most stable and contained the least amount of bugs.  It is my experience that 8.6.1 was actually the worst version of the v8s due to several display bugs.

I have been VERY pleased with v9 so far as they seem to correct most of the bugs I was experiencing in v8.6.x.

I would highly recommend you upgrade to the v9 version if you are itching for an upgrade.

Also, in my experience with using National Instrument software, their versioning does not give much insight into the bugs that were present.  I was much more affected by bugs in 8.6 than I was in 8.2.  8.6 also contained more features than 8.2.  Therefore the "y" in their x.y.z does not seem to represent bug fixes but more like whatever NI feels like (features, bug fixes, change for change sake).

Now they have adopted the whole "year" format so things are even more ambiguous.  (GO GO MARKETTING!!!!!!!!!!!!)  So expect LabVIEW 2010 to REALLY be v9.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1 AND NOT v10.  (what a joke, eh?)

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Nickerbocker:

Thanks for the bad news :). At least my graph plot not printing issue is fixed, more testing to ensue....

-AK2DM

[Jon_S. · Accepted solution]

Hello Taper,

After reading your post there are a couple of documents you should take a look at. First is the NI LabVIEW Operating System Roadmap. As you can see we are officially supporting Windows 7 with the release of this months drivers CD updates. LabVIEW 8.6.1 and previous will not be officially supported on Windows 7. Because of this I would strongly consider moving to LabVIEW 2009 over LabVIEW 8.6.1.



If you are worried about particular bugs then I would recommend looking at the LabVIEW 8.6.x Known Issues and the LabVIEW 2009 Platform Known Issues. 

[taper]

Thanks for the info guys.  I'll make my case for 2009, we'll see what happens.

[Jon_S.]

Looks like my known issues links are broken...oops.

LabVIEW 2009 Platform Known Issues

LabVIEW 8.6.x Known Issues