Upgrade to LabVIEW 2012 caused Additional Installers issue

[jmorris]

Hello again all you helpful forum-goers!

I have been using LabVIEW 2010 (SP1) for a while on my Windows XP computer, but I recently purchased and installed LabVIEW 2012 for a future project.  In the meantime, my previous projects must still use LabVIEW 2010 until I use my company's formal change tracking system to upgrade them.  However, when I recently opened one of my older projects in 2010 to update it and rebuild the installer, I saw in the Additional Installers tab a bunch of blank lines at the end of the list (see attached screenshot).  This doesn't directly hurt me, but I have to think it is a symptom of the root problem.

More directly relevant, the NI VISA Run-Time 5.0.3 that had been checked previously was now missing, and the NI VISA Run-Time 5.2 that had replaced it was NOT checked.  That seems like an upgrade oops on National Instruments' part to me.  I decided it was just a quirk, and that the 2012 installer had replaced my 5.0.3 version with the 5.2 version (deleting the old version), so I checked the 5.2 version to build my installer, and after requiring my DVD to copy the software to my computer, that seemed to work ok.

Now the immediate problem: when I distributed the project file to a colleague who only has LabVIEW 2010, she was not able to build my software's installer, because it asked her for the "FADEC_Emulator" disk.  "FADEC_Emulator" is the name of my software.  Expanding the error dialog showed that it wanted that disk in order to get access to NI VISA Run-Time 5.0.3.  Opening the properties of the installer in the project file within LabVIEW showed NI VISA Run-Time 5.0.3 checked.  However, opening the project file with Wordpad showed that NI VISA Run-Time 5.2 was listed as an additional installer (and NOT 5.0.3).  Maybe her system saw that I wanted NI VISA Run-Time 5.2, and automatically replaced it with the latest version it had, 5.0.3?  Confusing!  And if it did that, why didn't it have that version handy already?  And switching versions like that seems like it would be a bad idea to do silently, in case I was relying on a feature specific to the new version.

I'm afraid that since installing LabVIEW 2012 my system has gotten into an unstable state, and I now have possibly corrupted my project's LV project file.  I need to have both 2010 and 2012 on my computer for the time being.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on with my system, and/or how to fix it?

Thank you very much in advance for your suggestions and time!

-Joe

[jmorris]

Interestingly, if I open the LabVIEW project file in LabVIEW 2012, the Additional Installers tab looks fine - no extra lines at the bottom.  The LabVIEW 2012 run-time is selected instead of 2010, though.

Unfortunately, I cannot just build my project in 2012.  Even if it didn't introduce new quirks that would take time to work out (and I'm trying to release it now), my company's change tracking is more formal than that.

[jmorris]

Additional update: testing has shown that building my project's installer using LabVIEW 2010 on my computer with NI VISA Run-Time 5.2 will result in an installer that does successfully install both my software and NI VISA Run-Time 5.2, and they do work together, so this isn't an immediate crisis thank goodness.  🙂

However, I do still want to get my system un-FUBARed as well as having other people be able to build my installer if necessary, so my request still stands.  😉

[Doug-W]

Hi Joe,

It sounds like VISA Runtime 5.0.3 was not automatically uninstalled properly when you installed LabVIEW 2012. You cannot have two versions of VISA on a machine at the same time. I think your best option would be to remove all VISA instances (runtime, server, etc) and install the latest version of VISA here (http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/3823/lang/en). Please close all instance of national instruments software before you uninstall/reinstall VISA in order to ensure the resources are available.

Doug W

[jmorris]

Hi Doug,

Thanks for your reply!  It seems odd that that would cause the blank lines problem I saw, but I will be happy to try your solution as soon as I am done with the current release cycle of my product (i.e. a couple days).

How does it work in normal circumstances when I have VISA 5.2 on my computer and save the installers as using that, and then give the project file to my co-worker who has VISA 5.0.3 on her machine?  Should she see the installer as using 5.0.3 if she opens up the project file in LabVIEW 2010?  Should it build correctly in that case?  And do you think somehow fixing the problem on my computer would fix the fact that that didn't happen when we tried it most recently on hers?

Thanks again for your time!  I'll definitely let you know if your solution fixed either or both of my problems.

-Joe

[Doug-W]

Hi Joe,

Since your colleague's system did not have 5.2, the LabVIEW installer will revert to the latest version installed on your colleague's machine. I'm not sure why the error dialog would show that it wanted the "FADEC_Emulator" disk for access to NI VISA Run-Time 5.0.3, it would make more sense for it to want access for VISA RT 5.2. It does make sense however that the project file would list NI Run-Time 5.2 as an additional installer if  the project was initially saved with version 5.2. When you tried building on your colleague's PC, did it build with NI VISA RT 5.0.3? 

I am going to try replicating this situation here and see if I can determine the root cause of the issue. Thanks

Doug W

[jmorris]

Hi Doug,

My coworker was not able to build my software with the project file I gave her, because of the issue with asking for the "FADEC_Emulator" disk.

I'd be interested in knowing if you are able to replicate the issue.  Thanks for your help!

-Joe

[Doug-W · Accepted solution]

Hi Joe,

I tried to reproduce your issues, and encountered mixed results. Please verify with what I've provided below that we are testing under the same conditions

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@jmorris wrote:

More directly relevant, the NI VISA Run-Time 5.0.3 that had been checked previously was now missing, and the NI VISA Run-Time 5.2 that had replaced it was NOT checked.  That seems like an upgrade oops on National Instruments' part to me.  I decided it was just a quirk, and that the 2012 installer had replaced my 5.0.3 version with the 5.2 version (deleting the old version), so I checked the 5.2 version to build my installer, and after requiring my DVD to copy the software to my computer, that seemed to work ok.

---

In this scenario, I built a test project with VISA RT 5.0.3 and LabVIEW 2010 configuration. I then installed LabVIEW 2012 and VISA 5.2.0 on top of the aforementioned setup. When I opened the 2010 project in 2012, VISA Run-Time 5.2 was checked (as expected, dissimilar to your configuration). As I mentioned earlier, this may have been because VISA 5.2.0 did not install properly.

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@jmorris wrote:

Now the immediate problem: when I distributed the project file to a colleague who only has LabVIEW 2010, she was not able to build my software's installer, because it asked her for the "FADEC_Emulator" disk.  "FADEC_Emulator" is the name of my software.  Expanding the error dialog showed that it wanted that disk in order to get access to NI VISA Run-Time 5.0.3.  Opening the properties of the installer in the project file within LabVIEW showed NI VISA Run-Time 5.0.3 checked.  However, opening the project file with Wordpad showed that NI VISA Run-Time 5.2 was listed as an additional installer (and NOT 5.0.3).  Maybe her system saw that I wanted NI VISA Run-Time 5.2, and automatically replaced it with the latest version it had, 5.0.3?  Confusing!  And if it did that, why didn't it have that version handy already?  And switching versions like that seems like it would be a bad idea to do silently, in case I was relying on a feature specific to the new version.

---

For this case, I built the installer on LabVIEW 2012 with VISA RT 5.2.0 then saved it for LabVIEW 2010 compatiblity. When I opened the installer in a LabVIEW 2010 with VISA 5.0.3 environment, VISA 5.0.3 was checked (as expected since LabVIEW will default to the latest version of VISA on the PC regardless of what the original installer referenced). I did, however, see three extra blank lines in the additional installers tab (more on this below) . I also tried to build the installer as you indicated, but did not get any prompts for disks and was able to build successfully. 

One thing to keep in mind is that LabVIEW by default will use the version of the driver that is installed on the build PC, regardless of whether it is newer or older than the installer references. If you feel this negatively impacts your successes as a developer, please feel free to post a feature request (e.g. for a prompt when the driver version changes) in our idea exchange forum (http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/idb-p/labviewideas ).

Lastly, regarding the empty lines in the additional installer specifications, this problem appears to be fixed in LabVIEW 2012 and only manifests itself in 2010. During my course of testing, this did not affect building the installers and is a minor inconvenience which has been fixed in subsequent versions.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions/comments regarding these issues. 

Regards

Doug W

[jmorris]

Hi Doug,

Regarding the first situation you described, I agree what you did should have reproduced the problem, so it probably was an install problem on my end.

Regarding the second situation, it was not exactly how I did it.  I built a project with 5.0.3 in LabVIEW 2010, then upgraded to 2012 and 5.2, then opened that project in 2010.  I saw NI-VISA was not included in the additional installers, so I checked it, and saved the project.  I then gave that project to my collegue who opened it on her computer (which only has LabVIEW 2010 and 5.0.3 on it).  So the primary different from what you described is that I checked VISA 5.2 and saved the project using 2010, not 2012 saving to a 2010-compatible format.  Of course that shouldn't matter, but then again it shouldn't be getting the error at all.  😉  I only mention it for the sake of thoroughness.

I agree having LabVIEW default to whatever version of the driver is installed on the computer is the right thing to do in most cases, and am perfectly happy with that behavior in general.  As a side note I love the idea-exchange forum and that it directly impacts the features / bug fixes going into the next version of LabVIEW.  🙂

If the empty lines are a cosmetic issue only then I'm fine ignoring that.

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Moving on to your suggested solution:

I went to my Add/Remove programs, and opening up the NI software item I saw the following list of NI-VISA items:

NI-VISA 5.0.0 for LabVIEW Real-Time
NI-VISA 5.1.0 for LabVIEW Real-Time
NI-VISA 5.2.0
NI-VISA 5.2.0 for LabVIEW Real-Time
NI-VISA Runtime 5.2.0
NI-VISA Server 5.2.0

If I'm only supposed to have one NI-VISA version and I have 3 of the "for LabVIEW Real-Time", maybe that is the issue?  However, uninstalling them and reinstalling the latest version is a lot more complicated than it first sounds!  If I were to uninstall all of the above items, the following would also be removed:

NI CompactRIO 12.0 for LabVIEW Real-Time
NI CompactRIO Recommended Software Sets
NI FieldPoint Embedded 6.0.11
NI FieldPoint Embedded 6.0.8
NI Instrument I/O Assistant
NI LabVIEW 2010 SP1 Real-Time Module
NI LabVIEW 2012 Real-Time Module
NI LabVIEW SignalExpress 2012
NI PXI-5660 Support
NI-DCPower 1.6.4
NI-DMM 3.0.6
NI-FGEN 2.9.1
NI-HSDIO 1.8.3
NI-RFSA 2.5.5
NI-RFSG 1.8.5
NI-RFSG Run-Time 1.8.5
NI-RIO 3.6.0 Driver for Real-Time Embedded Targets
NI-SCOPE 3.9.4
NI-SCOPE Run-Time 3.9.4
NI-SWITCH 4.5.5
NI-Serial 3.7 for LabVIEW Real-Time
NI-Serial 3.8.1
NI-Serial 3.8.1 for LabVIEW Real-Time
NI-Serial 3.8.2 for LabVIEW Real-Time
NI-Sync 3.3.5
NI-Sync for LabVIEW Real-Time 3.3.5

Yikes!  I don't know how much if any of that I use or will need in the future (besides the Real-Time module, which I definitely do), but I sure wish there was some way to note what it was and automatically re-install it after I reinstall NI-VISA.  Do you have any suggestions on how I can get my system back up to snuff with all of these items in one step, or will I just have to go through and hunt for each one of those individually in the LabVIEW Development System installer DVDs (first version 2010 SP1, then version 2012)?  😛

Thank you again for your time and assistance,

-Joe

[Doug-W]

Hi Joe,

Actually instead of uninstalling and reinstalling, we can use another method by forcing a reinstall which will replace all of the files currently on the PC. First, you can download the executable from the National Instruments website at http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/3337/lang/en. Note that version 5.3 is also now available (http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/3823/lang/en ). After you have downloaded the setup executable, please follow the steps in this knowledge base http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/ADD22E807D5A12AD862579EC00760F79?OpenDocument by running the setup executable from the command prompt. Please let me know if you incur any other issues after you have reinstalled. Thanks

Doug W